A tidy little pair from Hopfully today, 33cl cans sporting their new clean-but-weird artwork.Insideout is first, 5% ABV and telling us nothing more about it on the can. Well, nothing much. It doesn't says it's hazy (it should) but the inclusion of oats on the ingredients is a clue. Turns out it's full-on New England: the opaque colour of orange juice and smelling of satsumas, vanilla and garlic. The flavour has a certain amount of pleasant juice, particularly in the finish, but there's a sharp savoury bite up front that I don't care for. There's a fair measure of dank resins in the middle too, providing balance of a sort. It's nearly a very good example of the hazy pale ale style, and those who like their pale ales fluffy and sweet will find much to enjoy here. That caraway pinch up front (that you Mosaic?) spoiled it just a little for me, however.
Spoonerising low-quality gose, the companion IPA is called Shinebright. It's a medium orange-to-yellow, and opaque again: another crypto-New-Englander, perhaps? Again, the can doesn't tell us what the hops are, which I'm starting to think is a fault in hop-forward beers like this. That said, it's not saturated and the flavours are quite subtle. There's a gentle orange and lemon vibe; cool and summery, suggesting long drinks under parasols: quite an achievement for the dark and damp October night on which I drank it. Despite a full 6% ABV, it manages to stay light, crisp and clean; easy to drink with no alcohol burn or sharp hop-acid edges. Fans of the big vanilla-and-garlic bombs might decry it as bland, but I really enjoyed its understated complexity.Conclusions? Sometimes hazy pale ales are good and sometimes they're not so good? But you knew that already.
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