Is Antlered IPA A Nice Beer

Antlered IPA comes from the Welsh brewery Purple Moose located in Porthmadog in North wales. It is described as simply a stunning beer from Snowdonia. Sounds good, but is it?

I wouldn’t call antlered IPA a stunning beer, for me it is a bit of a let down. It pours a clear mid gold with a one finger head. On the nose it is subtle and a little dank, I have to try hard to get any citrus aromas, but I think I got something. The taste is dank, a slight fruity citrus comes through with a huge amount of bitterness. Not keen on this IPA, it scores 3.0 out of 5.0.

Maybe I had a bad bottle, but this IPA is not what I was expecting, disappointing.

Table Of Contents

Antlered IPA Review

It wasn’t long ago that I tried Merry X-Moose Ale from Purple Moose Brewery and I enjoyed it, a pretty decent beer.

So as I pick up another beer from Purple Moose, their Antlered IPA, I am looking forward to getting stuck in.

It stands in a 500ml brown bottle with a purple and orange label, the brewery logo sitting centre stage. The label also shows two awards on the front. A bronze award from The International Beer Challenge 2018, and a bronze from SIBA Independent Beer Awards 2022.

Looks like I am in for a treat with this 5.2% ABV IPA, so lets crack this beauty open.

Drinking Antlered IPA

Crown removed and a slightly aggressive pour, Antlered IPA settles to a clear mid gold with a solid one finger white foamy top.

This does fade to a thin cover, but then stays for the duration with a good amount of bubbles rising up the glass.

Going in for a sniff and I am surprised to be met with a rather dank aroma, not pleasant at all. I have to really focus to get anything else, but get the slightest of citrus aromas behind the dank smell.

The taste follows suit with that dank aroma running through the mouth. A slight fruity citrus, but nothing else apart from a real strong bitterness from start to finish.

A medium carbonation is fine, but the mouthfeel is really dry and the dank flavour is not nice. Not a pleasant IPA, dank and bitter, and although I like my bitterness, this is a weird bitterness.

A little underwhelmed, and as hard as I try with this beer, I am not feeling it. It scores just 3.0 out of 5.0.

M’Lady is not keen either, saying “This IPA has a strange smell, I find it particularly dry and lacking any depth, too bitter for me.” However Lou scores it a surprising 3.5 out of 5.0, I was expecting a lot lower score from Lou.

I wonder if I have a dodgy bottle, maybe in its travels it has been stored badly, I don’t know, but it isn’t pleasant.

Purple Moose Brewery

Purple Moose Brewery was established in 2005 by Lawrence Washington in coastal town of Porthmadog, North Wales.

I write a little about the breweries history on the brewery page, where you can also find any other beers I have tried from Purple Moose.

So instead I will touch on their 3000th brew which happened around may 2022. Purple Moose using experimental hops from Charles Faram Hop Development Program brewed a punchy modern IPA with a low ABV.

The challenge was to see if they could brew a beer that gave the same hop explosion as modern high strength IPA’s. However, keeping the ABV low, I am not sure if they pulled it off, as I never got to try it.

The beer was called ‘Low Gravity’ and came in at a very low 2.0% ABV

Here is a behind the scenes look at them brewing Low Gravity.

Purple Moose Beers

I have only tried a couple of Purple Moose beers, and I know I am not keen on the Antlered IPA, but I do like their festive beer Merry X-Moose Ale.

I am looking forward to getting a few more of their beers under my belt. And they have a good range of beers, a good solid core range, as well as an exciting looking Craft beer range.

So my Purple Moose journey continues, here are a few of their beers on my hit list.

Mwsh

Mwsh is a Kolsch style lager, the name Mwsh translates as More, so we are looking at more lager, that’s fine by me.

As part of the Craft beer line up, it is said to have a passionfruit aroma, a toffee malt flavour with a sweet finish. The mouthfeel is clean and crisp, just like a typical lager.

Weighing in at a decent 4.7% ABV it is a lager with a nice bite, one for those warm sunny days. I’ll go along with that.

High Hops

High Hops is a modern pale hazy tropical IPA with a 5.4% ABV, so not a session beer. The nose is described as tropical with mango and passionfruit aromas.

The taste is a cocktail of mango, grapefruit and a kick of lime giving some serious tropical zesty notes. Another beer from their craft range, this IPA is definitely on my hit list, in fact I have high hops for this beer ( I couldn’t resist).

Chocolate Moose

I do love a stout, so this one automatically makes my hit list. A chocolate and vanilla stout that is rich and smooth delivering those exact flavours followed by a nice balanced bitter finish.

Apparently the brewery have been improving this stout over the last few months to make it even better than its award winning status.

At 5.6% ABV it packs a decent punch, I am looking forward to getting my hands on this one.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion I have not had a good experience with Antlered IPA, but I am a little suspicious. I may have got a bad bottle, which could be a result of how it has travelled and been stored before I got my hands on it.

For that reason I am going to source another bottle and give it another shot. I will update this post when I do to report the results.

That said, I still look forward to working my way through more Purple Moose beers. Probably starting with those I have featured above.

I would be interested to see if others get the same from Antlered IPA as I have, so do share your thoughts below if you have tried this beer. Hopefully you had a better experience.