Black Circle Brewing Co. Devil’s Fanny Pack Double IPA (8.3% ABV)
Pour: On draft, poured into a snifter
Appearance: Medium gold with a thin white head that dissipates quickly. Good edging, no real lacing
Aroma: Not much in the nose, especially for a DIPA. A vaguely sweet note, and that’s about it
Taste: Caramel and stone fruits up front, resiny in the middle. Something sticky/bitter in the finish. Good balance, not as overpowering or palate-killing as most DIPAs
Mouthfeel: Medium and resiny, lightly carbonated. Coats the teeth and tongue.
Someone told me the other day that there’s now something like 40 breweries in the Indianapolis area. I don’t have anywhere near the amount of patience required for looking up and counting them all, but I can certainly believe it. Indy is moving away from being primarily a Sun King kind of town. Frankly, I couldn’t be happier about that – most of the beers I’ve tried from there have left me feeling kind of underwhelmed. More importantly, Indy’s craft beer explosion means that there are many new beers for me to try. Last weekend I made my first trip to Black Circle Brewing Co. to see Begrime Exemious, so of course I had to sample a couple of their beers.
Black Circle is an ultra small batch microbrewery located in the Midtown/SoBro area that opened in December of 2016. I’m guessing the name Black Circle is a reference to vinyl LPs, since there’s a turntable and quite a collection of records behind the bar. It’s also a great spot to see a band play, and when construction is finished on their all-ages room they could easily become the coolest spot in Naptown to see a show.
Okay…that’s enough prologue. Let’s talk about beer. I’m going to use a word here to describe their Devil’s Fanny Pack that I don’t think I’ve ever used when discussing a DIPA: subtle. Most DIPAs tend to be high-gravity hop bombs, but not this one. I couldn’t even begin to guess the hop combinations here, but the end result is a well-balanced beer that tends towards the sweet and sticky side of the hop spectrum. The resiny notes tend to dominate both the flavor profile and the feel, but there are enough caramel and stone fruit notes to even things out, and just enough bitterness in the finish to keep it from being too sweet. It’s a different kind of DIPA, but it’s definitely a tasty one. If it’s still on the tap tower, I’ll definitely have another when I go back to see Pyrrhon on Tuesday.
