Lagunitas New Dogtown Pale Ale

I have heard that Lagunitas is a very popular brewery among craft beer drinkers and they have been around for a while brewing beer in Petaluma, California, north of San Francisco.  This is Lagunitas New Dogtown Pale Ale, 6.2% ABV. New Dogtown is American Pale Ale that pours a deep yellow gold color with a two and a half finger of white head that bubbles and fades rather rapidly. I could see light coming through with fast trails of carbonation bubbles rushing and racing to the fading white head. The aroma on this is piney and more along the sent of an IPA (India Pale Ale) with bits of grassy notes along side the larger piney aroma. New Dogtown has an aroma that is more like an IPA that a pale ale in my opinion. The taste on New Dogtown is similar to the aroma with piney flavors and bits of grassy hoppy notes. I find the flavor/taste to be a bit hoppy for pale ale. I didn’t really get any other flavors on the taste. The mouth feel is medium with some bitterness from the hops. New Dogtown finish with a grassy, piney bitterness that I find to be okay in an IPA, but not so much in pale ale. The aftertaste is just a continuation of how New Dogtown taste. There is hoppy flavor that grows a little as the aftertaste lingers for a bit. I didn’t like this Lagunitas New Dogtown Pale Ale, so I it gets a D+. For me this pale ale was more like an IPA, and I don’t mind IPA’s but when the label says pale ale I would like for it to be that, and it wasn’t. I think New Dogtown could use more malt to balance the hoppy nature of this beer and it might be better. It didn’t seem to have enough balance of flavors; it was just too much hoppy flavors here (grassy, piney, and hops). But I know that this beer is better with more people, I just found it not so good because it was something different than what it is supposed to be. Cheers! Please Enjoy responsibly!