Haze praise

I've been a fan of the work of Romanian brewery Hop Hooligans in the past, so picked up these three new ones when they passed my way.

Elder Gods is an interesting proposition, being a sour ale of 5% ABV with added elderflower, honey and lemon. That suggests summer drinking to me, and it is a sunny opaque yellow colour in the glass. Neither the aroma nor flavour are especially strong, indicating that real fruit and flowers have been used here, rather than concentrate or syrup. There's a bright and zesty lemon character, and then a bonus sweetness which is just about recognisable as elderflower, plus a spicing that would have me swearing there's ginger involved too, but it's not listed. Nothing about it is sour, though it's not horribly sweet either. While refreshing, it's very plain, and a lot less interesting than the specification led me to believe. Oh well.

Two hazy IPAs follow, beginning with Seaview, hopped with Cryo Mosaic, Azacca and Pacific Sunrise. The half-litre can took a while to pour, piling up lots of fluffy foam. It's inconvenient but I'm not complaining about getting 60ml more than the norm. Under the head it's a pale, beaten-egg yellow. The aroma isn't especially interesting, having the broadly sweet fruit effect of a zillion nondescript murky IPAs. It does go interesting places with the flavour, however. First of all it's clean: no heat, no grit, no garlic. That leaves plenty of room for the fruit attributes, and that's done subtly, like the aroma. There's a soft peachiness on a milkshake vanilla effect. I thought at first that it lacked bitterness: there's certainly no punch up front. It does leave a residual echo of lime in the aftertaste, which I enjoyed. The big surprise is a kind of tannic dryness which complements the smooth mouthfeel beautifully, plus a mild peppery spicing which adds a very unexpected twist. At 6% ABV it should be a sipper, but I found that the combination of silky mouthfeel and balanced, understated flavours, made it very sinkable. A half litre barely lasted a quarter of an hour before I was ready to open the next one.

Mass Production is the same strength and looks broadly similar, though perhaps a little paler and more transparent. The hops this time are Strata, Mosaic and Nelson Sauvin and, as you might expect, there's more going on in the aroma from that. Juice is very prominent there, and quite tropical, with pineapple and cantaloupe notes. Again the flavour is subtle for the most part, though with more character in evidence than with the previous one. I credit the Nelson with jazzing the whole thing up, bringing its own kind of mineral spice, plus a dollop of gooseberry, pear and honeydew melon. They've retained the overarching cleanness from the other beer and that really helps the hop flavour come through unimpeded, its sweet vanilla side relegated to a supporting role. I took a bit longer with this one, enjoying exploring the delicate hop features which are tastefully displayed. By the end I wish wishing for a third IPA with even more of a clean hop profile.

My appreciation of Hop Hooligans continues unimpeded. They caught my attention first with brash and banging bitter IPAs, but this shows they're a dab hand at the gentler sort too.