Our Tastes-- BBC Professor Gesser's IPA

Professor Gesser's IPA is one of a few brews my squeeze brought back from Louisville on her last trip and one I needed to share. Not currently on their website but there are many ratings on ratebeer and beeradvocate. It pours a nice dark copper with yellowish flattening head. Characterized as an American IPA the nose seems to have a Chinook or Cascade to it. It has a strong bitter up front taste with little hop blending to it. I understand IPAs are supposed to have a bitter taste to them but this one seems to have a "bad" bitterness to it, almost astringent. No malt to mention on this one. On other reviews it has the abv at 7.1-9% which is a warming redeeming quality but then again you can get bad moonshine at 70% (from what I hear;)