Calendar cans

It's an inadvertently-built collection of Hopfully beers today, two recent releases and one that had been sitting politely at the back of the fridge waiting to be opened.

So first off I owe apologies to the brewers that it's nearly Christmas and I'm only now getting around to their Halloween seasonal, Boo. It's a sour ale of 5.5% ABV with added raspberry, cherry, blackcurrant and lime. That sounds like it's really doubling, quadrupling, down on the sourness but there's lactose as well. In the glass it's a pale hazy pink and smells quite yoghurty: creamy with a strong forest fruit vibe. I thought I knew what to expect, so was astounded when the cherry proved to be the dominant feature of the flavour. The lactose adds a cakey sweetness which makes the whole thing taste a bit like a cherry bakewell, which I happen to love. There's the faintest of tartness, more to do with the lime than the sour culture. Overall, it's really good. I don't normally like these non-sour sour beers, but it turns out all you need to do is pile in the cherry to keep me happy.

A hazy IPA is next. Headlights is brewed with what ought to be two quite contrasting varieties of hops: soft Nelson Sauvin and sharp Citra. The yellow-emulsion appearance marks it as one of the classy ones. Its aroma is pithy rather than juicy: a fibrous jaffa orange effect. The flavour is almost smooth and juicy but there's a bump or two in there, an element of gritty roughness with savoury fried onion. I tried hard to ignore it but it kept interrupting the fun. The fun is fun, however. It's more the minerally side of Nelson than the grape, but that's still good, and then there's an acidity rather than a bitterness per se coming from the Citra, helping to balance the soft vanilla sweetness which comes with the style. They have so nearly nailed the New England thing here but something has gone very slightly awry with the hops, to my taste anyway.

Another seasonal beer finishes things, one with a rather more appropriate name for December. No clove or cinnamon here: Joy to the Box is an oatmeal imperial stout with chocolate, coconut and pineapple. Intriguing, but does it work? It's a bit of a murky boy, a muddy pale brown rather than proper black. The handsome tan-coloured head didn't last very long. The aroma, unsurprisingly, is pure Bounty: all the oily coconut against a rich and sweet chocolate background. 8.5% ABV plus oatmeal is a perfect recipe for smoothness, and it gets that bang on, slipping silkily across the palate, with just a polite prickle of carbonation keeping things lively. I was worried it might be hot or cloying but there's none of that. It's so smooth that the foretaste is pretty much missing, sliding past unnoticed. Only the finish and aftertaste are left to speak for the flavour, and while a lot of that is more Bounty -- you really need to like both chocolate and coconut in beers for this -- there's a piquancy too; not quite bitter but definitely acidic. It took me a moment to realise it's probably the pineapple. It doesn't taste like pineapple under everything else as I guess there's no room for a different kind of sweetness, but it prevents the whole picture from being purely two-dimensional. Despite the appearance, this is good clean fun; a very satisfying big midwinter stout where the bells and whistles are in excellent harmony. 

Hopfully continues to surprise. There's something different in all three of these, including the IPA. I look forward to having my expectations further confounded by these Brazilian cuckoos in 2022.