Wasatch Brewery - Ghostrider White IPA

For the Tenth Beer of Christmas, I can't decide if I want to sing the song or deny someone permission to buzz the tower because the pattern is full. Probably the song. Especially the Johnny Cash version.

Wasatch Brewery
Ghostrider White IPA

In the post announcing the Twelve Beers for 2014, I mislabeled this one as coming from the Utah Brewers Cooperative. Now that I've done my research, I've uncovered an interesting story about brewing in Utah. I'll detail that in the interesting notes below. For now, let's get to drinking ...

Pouring up a hazy, straw color, this beer has what I can best describe as a ghostly appearance. Bazinga! Quite notable is the large, pure white head on this beer. It was almost two fingers of froth and left chunky lacing all around the glass as I drank. I mean, so chunky that I put my finger down in the glass and was wiping up the lacing like it was icing left in the bowl after frosting a cake. And it was just as tasty.

The aroma is a mildly floral with spicy notes and a bit of grapefruit. It seems milder than most IPAs.

From the aroma, I was thinking the flavor might be more subdued like a pale ale. Instead, though, I'd call it a softened IPA. It doesn't kick you in the face and scream, "I'm an IPA, damnit!" like some IPAs do. Instead, it whispers it, almost seductively. The hops come through at first drink along with the spiciness of coriander. This light bodied beer finishes crisp and clean with a light bittering from the hops and some citrus.

I'm generally a "one and done" IPA drinker. I like them well enough, but don't want to drink many because when I do I often feel the need to use a toothbrush to scrub my tongue clean. This one, though, is very sessionable. I just finished my second and will be heading to the refrigerator for a third after I finish this blog post.

Stats
Brewer: Wasatch Brewery
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
Website: http://www.utahbeers.com
Style: India Pale Ale
Alcohol Content: 6.00% ABV
Interesting Note: Watasch Brewery opened it's doors in 1986 as the very first brewery in Utah. Two years later, founder Greg Schirf proposed a bill to the Utah Legislature and helped brewpubs become legal in the state. Then, of course, he opened the first one. A year after that, Squatters Pub Brewery (owned by completely different people) opened in Salt Lake City and then expanded into a full production brewery five years later. For the several years, the two breweries cruised along, boiling up wort and serving great beers. Then they discovered that despite growing demands for craft beer, the two breweries were not performing as well as they'd hoped. In an effort to cut expenses, the two came together to brew under one roof, the Utah Brewers Cooperative. The two companies seem (from what I can find) to still operate as independent entities, but they work together to minimize costs during brewing.