Salty hops

One pleasant discovery for me from the summer's Boxtravaganza virtual festival was Yorkshire's Salt brewery. Their beers started to make an appearance on the shelves here later in 2020, beginning with today's first three pale ales.

A dinky little 4%-er starts us off: Calico. Its modern sensibilities spread beyond the clean branding to the opaque yellow liquid inside. With that sort of full-on haze and oats in the grist, I'm a little surprised it's not formally classed as New England-style. That could be because of the bitterness, mind. The aroma gives the first suggestion of it: the peel and pith of a big jaffa orange. The citrus is even more concentrated in the flavour, a tight pinch of grapefruit and lime juice. While it doesn't have New England's vanilla side, there is a balancing sweetness here, of orangeade and sherbet. Though the profile is from a new world playbook, the English ability to squeeze lots of flavour and a full body into a low-strength package is well demonstrated. This is enjoyable, happy stuff.

Jute is next, a session IPA at 4.2% ABV. It looks pretty similar to the previous one; maybe a little less hazy, though there was a lot of silty gunk in the bottom of the can, so it might have turned out identical if homogenised. The aroma is also similarly citric but the taste is a lot less impressive. There's a great deal less of it, for one thing, and there's a slightly hollow and watery quality. I'm perhaps being a little unfair. A few sips in I realised it wasn't really bland, just not as much of a flavour-bomb as the one previous. I should have changed the drinking order. Fuzzy meringue pie meets lemon zest here, which is fine and simple. There's a touch of off-putting grit from the lees and a slightly garlicky acidity. Middling to fair, all in all, I'd say.

A self-described New England IPA completes the initial trilogy. Huckaback is 5.5% ABV and a deeper colour than the others; more orange than yellow. The sensory intensity takes another dive, as this had almost no aroma at all; maybe a slight hint of mandarin, but nothing assertive or distinctive. Not a good sign. The texture is nice: it's fluffy without being dreg-ridden and there are no off-flavours. "Intensely fruity" said the label when I went looking for a clue as to how it should taste. Reader, it is not. Again there's a very mild mandarin and maybe some orange and vanilla icepop, but it was hard work to find anything on which to latch a tasting note. Is that a soda-water minerality in the finish? Perhaps. This was the blandest of the lot, doing nothing much interesting with its extra bandwidth of alcohol.

This initial set was followed later by a further pair. Bonneville is another 4%-er and self-describes as hazy. How many of these does one brewery need? The standard sweet and zesty lemon meringue aroma starts us off in a predictable way. The flavour is rather more off-kilter. It's intensely bitter in a vegetal, asparagus and chicory, sort of way. Then it finishes on a palate-scraping chalky dryness. I can't accuse this one of being bland, but I didn't enjoy it either, and was glad of the small can.

The final shot at redemption is Crash, this one 5% ABV but we're still in Hazy Town during yellow season. "Tropical aromas" declares the label. Lemons can be tropical, I suppose, maybe. It smells very lemony, with more of that dry gritty chalk, for a sort of soluble vitamin C tablet effect. That's pretty much what the flavour offers too, though it's softer than the previous one, the alcohol taking the edge off the severity. While not brilliant, it is palatable, the malt background adding a drizzle-cake dimension to the lemon, and there's a funky dank complexity to the hops. A sprinkling of coconut adds an extra seasoning, and reminds me of the Sabro session IPA that was my first Salt beer back in July. I found this off-putting to begin with, but even with a 33cl serve I was able to adjust to it and came to enjoy it by the end. This is an IPA to tackle when you're up for a challenge rather than refreshment.

Easy, tasty Calico set me up for a fall here. I thought I was in for a mid-strength riot of hazy hop joy but the switch came swiftly after the bait. I look forward to sinking a draught pint or three of Calico at some point in the future though. Otherwise, I think Salt's range may be a bit of an acquired taste, at best.