This one is all about the nose. Pour a bottle of the Elysian’s Avatar Jasmine IPA into a glass and just hold it right under your nostrils. It takes a bit, but buried under the mix of herbs, hops, and toasty malts is a faint whiff of jasmine flower. For me, a good IPA should have that nice aroma of sweetness and fruitiness. With the touch of floral in there, the effect is like a blast to this particular sense. It pours the color of dry straw with a loose head, yet a very decorative lace remains in the glass. Compared to the smell, the taste is fairly standard. But I don’t know that I want to be swallowing mouthfuls of flower petals, so it’s fine by me. Luckily the 20-ounce bottles start appearing on the racks of finer beer sellers in the summer. It’s a lighter beer and goes down easy. A perfect cooldown for these parched months.—Brian J. Barr www.elysianbrewing.com.