Tyranena Brewing Company Bitter Woman IPA (365 Day 70)

By scot in 365 Days of American Craft Beer on Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

Tyranena Bitter Woman IPA

Yeah, you could easily say that I am a Tyranena nut. I visited Tyranena brewery in July of 2009, after I had had a few of their beers, really liking them. The brewery was clean, they have a nice little bar with an outside beer garden. Nothing fancy, just straight forward and fun.

This time around I chose Bitter Woman IPA a year round American IPA. I have tried Tyranena’s Bitter Woman In the Rye back in November of 2009 when it was released as part of the ongoing “Brewers Gone Wild!” series. So I thought trying Bitter Woman IPA was very long in the making.

I recently picked up the bottle a beer store I visited in Wisconsin. When I open a beer, especially an IPA, I like to take a quick whiff, as I am usually greeted with a pleasant bouquet of dry hops; it makes my mouth water and anticipate the pour and eventually the first sip. Unfortunately, the first scents from the bottle told me this beer was passed its prime.

I hate to bitch and moan, but why don’t American craft beer brewers all get on the same page and date their receptacles? Spending my hard earned money on a beer that isn’t worth the bottle it was stored in, is disappointing. What is worse, what if that beer was the first for some wanna be convert from macros. Bye, bye, that chance was lost.

I guess it is my fault as I am usually skeptical about purchasing IPAs from stores that I don’t frequent and/or don’t have an idea of how often they turn over their stock. Like a moron, I keep trying. This is the last straw: I will not buy IPAs from a beer store that I have not been to before.

I will be trying Bitter Woman again, hopefully on tap this summer, as I want to give the beer its just due. Enjoy!

Aroma: 5, Taste: 5, Look: 9, Drinkability: 8, Overall: 6.7

Useless Fact: If you attempted to count all the stars in a galaxy at a rate of one every second it would take around 3,000 years to count them all.