Lightweights!

What happened to those palate-pounding Thornbridge beers like St Petersburg, and to making yourself Jaipoorly? The Derbyshire stalwart seems to be represented over here by much lighter fare of late, including these four examples.

First up is Bliss Point, strongest of the lot at a whopping 5% ABV.  The can claims it's a "hazy American pale ale" then backpedals on the details saying it's only a "slight haziness", and indeed it is -- a pale misty yellow. The texture is unforgivably thin for the strength, while the flavour is a mix of dry chalky minerals, herbal bathsalts and old-fashioned lemonade. While there's no malt character to speak of, the hops are muted too, lacking the platform they need to do their job. I kept thinking of diluted lemon barley water, where it needs topping up with a bit more concentrate from the bottle. This is inoffensive fare but verges a little too much on vapid and bland. Lift the finishing gravity, raise the IBUs, do something, please!

Next, on a dismal weekday evening, California Sun: a "west coast session IPA" of 4.5% ABV. It's the right amber-gold colour and has a lovely hard, almost metallic, bitterness, as a west-coaster should. This softens after a moment into fruit chews before finishing on harder resins: a concentrated bitterness, like biting a hop pellet. Though it is lightly textured, there's a proper base of oat cookie and light toffee to carry the flavour. It's nearly easy-drinking; only that rough resinous finish keeps me from chugging it down quickly. While there's plenty going on flavourwise -- it's definitely not bland -- I found it just a little too severe. Maybe all those fruity vanilla IPAs have ruined my palate after all.

So inevitably it's on to the funny ingredients. Satzuma is another session IPA at the same strength with, of course, satsuma peel. We're still in the clear, and this time the colour is a pale and bright golden. The peel is a big part of the flavour: a sudden jolt of real orange right at the front and building, exploding, outwards from there. For a change, there's actual beer perceptible underneath this. Any hop flavour is either drowned (Cascade, First Gold) or subsumed (Mandarina Bavaria) into the citrus foretaste. But there's a gentle snap of dry and lagery pale malt which brings an understated cleanness. Maybe I drank mine too warm, but I didn't get the spritzy refreshment I think the brewers were going for. It's still quite a heavy beer and again the flavours are too loud and intense for the session.

And so to the fruity vanilla IPA. Fresa also includes strawberry and lactose, with the ABV rocketing to 4.8%. Fourpure was the collaborator so it's probably all their fault. It's a pale yellow colour and shows some haze at last. The aroma is innocently fruity; somewhat tropical, perhaps because of actual hops. There are no hops in the flavour, though. There's the sticky ice cream or vanilla effect, sweet and gummy. And the strawberry is of the artificial sort: a a concentrated chemical syrup effect. And that's it. All the gimmicks and no underlying class. A novelty should at least go bananas with the silliness but this one is just bland.

While there are some good features in this set, these are not the sort of beers on which Thornbridge's reputation was built. The young'uns will be wondering why we ever made a fuss about it.