Cigar City "PAPAYA IPA"

Yesterday while at the CIGAR CITY BREWERY Taste Room I saw they had a Papaya IPA on tap as interesting as it sounded I wasn't too sure about it. (I described my experience at the Taste Room in my last blog. If you didn't read it then click HERE.) While there I saw these bottles on the shelve, come to find out they are called Growlers....

32oz 4 dollars

A gallon 7 dollars

They have both a 32oz and a gallon bottle. After asking Mary what they were for, I was informed that they can be purchased and filled with draft beer and brought back to be refilled. (Most of the beers run around 9 dollars for the 32oz and between 18-20 dollars for the gallon.) At this point I heard the most melodic harmony of angels coming from above. I half expected to be wrapped in a warm white light and have some sort of religious experience but as it turns out it was just a new song starting on Mary's iPod and not a sign from the heavens that I had reached beer Mecca. After having my pint and deciding on the bottle of Big Sound to bring home I started looking at the menu to see if there was anything else that caught my fancy. There way quite a few that really wanted to try, and probably will in the future but being the IPA fan I am I decided to stick with the papaya...

Price: 9.00 for a 32oz Growler plus the initial cost of Growler.
ABV: 7.5%
IBU: 64

I got my Growler filled and headed home. Now, I'm usually not a fan of fruit flavored alcohol but I am a HUGE fan of IPA's so I figured I'd give it a shot. There was no big surprise when I poured into my glass. It is a golden color with a nice thick, white head....

Sorry for the crappy picture. I still haven't figured out how to photograph beer in a decent manner.

 It's smelled like an IPA should with the strong scent of hops. The taste was pretty hoppy and relatively light. The one thing that surprised me about the IPA is that the papaya taste was present but not overpowering. There is a mild sweetness to it but you can't really place the fruit till afterwards. Even then it takes a few swigs to figure it out. After finishing the entire Growler I didn't have much of a buzz but then again it was only 2.5 glasses of a 7.5% so I wasn't expecting to have one. I would much rather drink a straight IPA but this wasn't too bad.
Overall this is an enjoyable beer. Nothing to write home about but if you enjoy IPA's then you may wanna give this a try sometime. This isn't a year round brew. I heard them say that was the last keg. I don't know if that means it's done for the season or if they just didn't have anymore kegs available of it at that time but if you enjoy IPA's and you're in the Tampa area it can't hurt to swing by their Taste Room. Hell, even if they are out of this I'm sure they'll have something you will enjoy.
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Till next time...