Adnams Jack Brand Crystal Rye IPA Review

I picked up this 330ml can of Adnams Crystal Rye IPA from Home Bargains for not a lot of money. If you're wondering why Adnams sounds familiar it's almost certainly because their Ghost Ship ale turns up pretty much everywhere all the time. Anyway they're a a Sussex based brewery who are about to celebrate their 150th birthday so it's fair to say they've been around a while. Jack Brand Crystal Rye IPA, or just Crystal Rye IPA (I'm not 100% sure) pours a pretty dark chestnut colour with a decent enough just off white head, so it's pretty dark for an IPA. I'd actually say it looks more like a bitter.

The beer has a fairly mild hoppy aroma with a bit of caramel lurking around in there. Crystal Rye IPA has quite a thin texture given the colour, but not given the style. As 5% beers go this one has a fair amount of taste to it with the hops all battling it out with the caramel malts for supremacy. Ultimately none of them really win but it still works out reasonably well as the taste becomes somewhere between a hoppy IPA and an old English bitter, it's actually quite intriguing and not all all unpleasant. I'm going to give Crystal Rye IPA from Adnams a pretty impressive 7.5 out of 10. It's a bit of a flavour mishmash but somehow they pull it off.