Hut sweet

I'm looking north for today's post. Beer Hut from Co. Down presents two hacked-about IPAs.

The first goes with the jaunty name If You Like Pina Colada's and is of course brewed using pineapple puree and coconut shavings. It's 5.3% ABV and a bright pale orange colour with a medium haze. I get coconut in the aroma but the accompaniment is more bitter citrus than sweet pineapple. Sure enough in the flavour there's a heavy concentration of orange... well... concentrate, pushing everything else out of the way with its stickiness. The coconut is relegated to an afterthought, and you can forget about hops. This fruit cocktail is undeserving of the title IPA. If you happen to like sweet fruit beers then here's one in a 44cl can instead of a 25cl bottle, but a serious IPA for serious drinkers it is not.

Fruit in IPA is par for the course, but what about sea salt? I am sceptical. Step forward Ahoy Captain, "sea salted IPA", a bruiser at 7.2% ABV. It took an age to pour, the head sticking up every time I thought I had it under control. Columbus, Chinook and Citra are the hops though there's not much sign of them or anything else in the aroma. The texture is thick and fluffy -- you'd expect a certain crispness from salt -- and the flavour is a mish-mash of generic hop features: a little citrus, a little stonefruit, a touch of dankness, with nothing really standing out. There's a lack of novelty which I can't believe I'm calling the beer out for. The sea salt does nothing!

I'm sure Beer Hut knows what it's doing. These are well-made and flawless beers, just not to my taste. I see enough on social media to know their audience is out there and doesn't mind dropping a fiver on a can.