S1E68 - Santa Maria Brewing Company's Mo-Tra Blood Orange IPA

Episode Notes

Episode 68: Santa Maria Brewing Company’s Mo-Tra Blood Orange IPA

It’s the Two Minute Beer Review!

I’m Andrew Burkum and it’s that time again where we take on that massive craft brew aisle to find the hidden treasures waiting for us there.

This week we’re taking a look at Mo-Tra Blood Orange IPA from Santa Maria Brewing Company in Atascadero, CA. Will this one turn us into orange-sucking vampires? Let’s find out!

Mo-Tra is a dark cloudy golden, trending toward brown in the glass. You can smell the orange on this one from a mile away. It’s full of the promise of lush juice and bright fruit. From the scent, I couldn’t wait to try it out.

But what about the taste? Mo-Tra hits right up front with a big wall of orange juice, just like the scent promises. There’s not a whole lot of bitterness here, but if you swing more toward the juicy end of modern IPAs in your taste, you’re going to find a whole lot to like here. Sadly, there’s not a ton of bitterness to offset all that juice, so for my taste it does get a bit sweeter than I would like. It’s not candy-sweet, but just enough over the edge on that side that I’d like to have a more powerful bitter side to balance things out just a bit.

Santa Maria adds oranges to their mix during secondary fermentation and then highlights this juice with a couple of varieties of hops that are also known to produce bright, citrusy notes. As such, if you’re looking for plenty of orange flavor, this beer will be a perfect selection for you. Mo-Tra tracks at 7.2% Alcohol by Volume, so it’s got the good strength of a standard IPA to back up that flavorful orange punch.

That’s all for this week, but I hope you’ll join me next week as we take a look at Lateral 6 Juicy IPA by Dust Bowl Brewing in Turlock, CA. With hops imported from New Zealand and Australia, will this be an adventure down under? We’ll find out next week.

Look for links to this week’s beer and brewery in the show notes, and don’t forget to let us know what you’re drinking and what you’re thinking about the show. You can find us on Facebook or tweet us @2minutebeer, using the number two.

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That’s all for now but we’ll see you next week as we continue on our quest to taste all the beer!

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