You don't know what you're getting

It was inevitable, with the rise in fashion of beers badged as west coast IPA, that we'd get a lot of variation within those supposed parameters. BRÚ illustrates the point for us today.

They've called Howling At The Sun a west coast IPA but it's quite hazy and reeks, deliciously, of freshly squeezed orange juice. The flavour is full-on bitter, though: a dry citric pith, scorching the palate. It's almost too much for my delicate gob, though thankfully settles down towards the end, introducing a little of the sweet fruit promised in the aroma. There are oats in the ingredients list, making me think they haven't taken the west coast spec completely seriously, but it's close enough for me. This is clean, refreshing and very assertive, and all done at a modest 5.7% ABV. Commendable.

The companion piece, Echoes, is also a west coast IPA with oats; slightly stronger than the previous, though noticeably paler and clearer. The aroma is milder and softer with a distinctly tropical side, even though Citra and Motueka are involved, neither of which I would place in that bracket. It must be the Strata. It suffers quite a reversal of fortune on tasting, where I got no tropical fruit and no citrus either. There's a touch of dry grass and oily herbs, which I'm guessing is the Motueka, but otherwise it's husky savoury caraway and sesame seed. There's not much of that either: this is disappointingly characterless. Clean, I guess, but very much the point at which that meets bland.

It's fascinating how two beers, in the same style, released from the same brewery at the same time, can be so different.