Wartime collaboration

Pinta has a series of collaboratively brewed IPAs with breweries from around Europe and beyond. It's called the "Hazy Discovery" series and it seems a bit odd to pick just one fairly narrow genre of beer when creativity is usually the whole point of collaboration. Anyway. Latvian brewer Ārpus is first, hence Hazy Discovery Riga.

Though a full 6.5% ABV, this is a little watery-looking in the glass, yellow and translucent. The aroma is hard and stony, suggesting full-throat Nelson Sauvin to me, with merely the faintest dribble of juice behind. Despite the appearance there's a decently full mouthfeel with a substantial alcohol heat, both of which help to carry lots of flavour. At this point I look at the label and see that what I thought was mega-Nelson is merely ordinary Riwaka, which makes a certain amount of sense. I've found this hop to be unpleasantly harsh in the past but here they've matched it with Mosaic which was a great idea. You still get the Kiwi's intense winter herbs and flinty minerals, but after the first bite there's a softer caress of mandarin and mango. It's very much a beer of two halves and doesn't go anywhere more daring than that. It tastes great, though. That's enough for me.

When the series reached Kyiv it abandoned its usual name and went with No To War! instead. Ukrainian brewery Rebrew is the partner this time. The ABV goes up to 7% and it's a little hazier though still quite pale and thin looking. I know not to prejudge this time, however. Sweet and creamy coconut is the aroma, followed by a powerfully pithy bitterness. Some sort of Sorachi variant, then? We are not told, but consider yourself warned or enticed according to taste: this beer is very that. Again a sizeable heat boosts the impact of the big hop taste, though texture is if anything thinner than before. There's something savoury on the fade-out, a little antiseptic but in a natural way: eucaplyptus or chamomile.

All solidarity with the people of Ukraine, and I'm once again pleased to be contributing to the humanitarian effort in however tokenistic a way, but the Kiwi-derived Latvian collaboration is my pick of this pair. Both show Pinta's acumen when it comes to hops, regardless.