Up in Ipswich, Massachusetts, a few fantastic East Coast India Pale Ales call home. One, Ipswich IPA, has been a well-received full body since the ’90s, clearly inspiring the other two, Clown Shoes’ Evil Crawfish Imperial Red Ale and Space Cake Double IPA. Despite its similar name, the ’16 version of Evil Crawfish Imperial Red IPA neatly dupes the Space Cake instead. A well-balanced update placing creamy cookie dough pastry cake sugaring and sweet peach-cherry-mango-nectarine-tangerine tang against rearranged Citra-Simcoe-Mosiac-Nelson Sauvin hop-embittered floral perfuming and sharp orange-peeled grapefruit and pineapple bittering, its depth and richness cannot be denied. Piney spruce sapping works its way into cereal-honeyed citric finish.
