Aurora Hoppyalis

Karl Strauss Brewing Company — San Diego, CA

10 May 2018 · Stephen

IPA Karl Strauss Brewing Company

7.0% ABV

60 IBU

Golden amber Color

Contributing Factors

Presentation ✓

Character ✓

Experience ✓

Return –

3 / 4 I'd recommend trying it

Tasting Notes

Appearance Golden to light amber, clear with a persistent white head. Classic San Diego IPA presentation — bright, clean, and confident in the glass. No haze, no ambiguity. This is a West Coast IPA that looks exactly like one.

Aroma Citrusy aromatics lead as Karl Strauss promises — grapefruit and orange upfront, tropical fruit underneath. A Japanese drinker who checks in from Tokyo calls it piney with a faint citrus-adjacent sweetness rather than a grassy character, and that's an astute distinction: Aurora Hoppyalis leans citrus-bright rather than dank-grassy, which is the San Diego house style. The light malt profile stays invisible on the nose, letting the hop aromatics speak without competition.

Palate Medium body with a clean, crisp mouthfeel — the light malt bill delivering structure without weight. The citrus and tropical fruit carry through the middle, the 60 IBU bitterness building on the back half in a firm, sustained West Coast curve. One drinker calls it light-bodied with mild hops and smooth, which is accurate from a taster-size perspective — the bitterness is assertive at a full pour but well-integrated and never harsh.

Finish Crisp, dry, and hop-forward — the finish Karl Strauss specifically calls out. Citrus and a light piney resin linger on the back palate, the bitterness sustaining cleanly before resolving completely.

The Verdict

Karl Strauss's oldest and most widely distributed IPA statement — a classically built San Diego West Coast IPA that puts hops front and center and stays completely out of their way. Citrus-forward, crisp, 7% ABV, hop to the max. As the brewery intended since 1989.

— Stephen · Contributing Factor Brewing · 10 May 2018