Fresh fish

Assuming a 12-month best-before, I drank these Lough Gill beers six days after they came off the canning line. It's not a metric I pay a whole lot of attention to, in fact I think the importance of freshness is massively overstated by a certain sort of beer geek who are marks for the breweries, but I thought I should mention it on the rare occasion it happens.

"NEIPA" proclaims the headline on Nectaron Drift, even though its 4.5% ABV might boggle the minds of any visiting Vermonters. The "drift" means that Comet, El Dorado and Citra are also in the hop mix. It's a fairly standard beaten-egg yellow murk job, and there's a lovely spice aspect to the aroma: fresh grass and rocket leaves, to an almost peppercorn intensity. The flavour carries that right through without much change. I know Nectaron is from New Zealand, and their hops tend to have Germanic roots, but I've never encountered Nectaron tasting so Saaz-like. Isn't it supposed to be fruity? Regardless, it's lovely. The other hops don't make much of a contribution. I don't really know Comet, but nothing of El Dorado's bright Skittles nor Citra's lime and grapefruit were separately discernible. But that's OK, it's still a roaring hop bomb. Except... there is a gritty quality, especially in the finish: one of the perennial issues with the haze/hop genre, and I think the low gravity exacerbates the problem, combining dry powdery dregs with a little wateriness. If I'm doing low-strength and sessionable, I want it clean, and this doesn't quite pull that off. In a pub situation I would be dubious about a second pint of this, but the honeymoon first one treated me to all the sparkle and fireworks I could wish for.

We're up at "proper" (spare me) IPA strength with Happy Coincidence: a full 6% ABV. It's even paler than the last glass of haze, and looks thinner, a little more transparent. Nelson Sauvin is placed first and second on the label's hop list, though the aroma doesn't give us much of that, only a very gentle flint minerality. The bigger strength pays dividends and there's a lovely soft and fluffy texture, in place right to the finish with absolutely no wateriness or resultant harsh qualities. I would love to say the flavour takes full advantage of that, but it's quite (faint praise alert) subtle. It's still definitely Nelson, with the sharp stone spice offset with sweeter vanilla and Victoria sponge. Pleasingly, there are no dreggy bum notes, and the whole thing is as slick, smooth and perfectly engineered as a high-end iPhone. It's a relaxing and, well, happy beer. Why the brewery thinks that's a coincidence is for them to explain. 

Two different takes on haze here, proof perhaps that this large sub-set of contemporary beer has a significant degree of variation within it, even when only one brewery is involved. Disagree with me on the freshness thing? Just post some honest blind tasting data and we'll go from there.