The United States of America will shortly be celebrating 245 years since it achieved independence and I thought I would mark the occasion with some American beers. As it happened, there was something of a theme to what was in my fridge when I went looking for candidates.Another Sierra Nevada brand extension? Hell yeah! This is Mango Little Thing, number eleventy-seven in the hazy IPA series, this time with tropical fruit added. It's a gentle 6% ABV and an innocent sunny yellow colour; hazy but not fully opaque. I do wonder if that's a conscious choice for marketing reasons or a mere consequence of the vast quantities in which the brewery makes its beer.
The aroma strikes a syrupy note; artificial and sticky, not like real mango. That becomes even more pronounced in the flavour, where the foretaste is like opening a bag of Skittles and giving each item inside a single lick. It is somewhat redeemed by still being an IPA, not merely an agglomeration of fruit gack. A subdued hop character hovers in the background, adding citrus pith and weedy resin for a note of realism in what's otherwise a sea of fakery. I guess it meets the spec: we are promised a mango flavoured IPA, and that's what we get. My problem is with the concept rather than Sierra Nevada's execution of it. I won't be buying this again, nor do I recommend it. If you miss drinking Magic Hat No. 9 with your fellow co-eds, however, this could be just the summer beer for you.
Mangoes aren't very American, but blueberries are. Indeed, in 1991 I learned that blueberry is the official state muffin of Minnesota on a tour of the state capitol building in St Paul. It's literally the only thing I remember from the visit. This beer, Blues Berry, comes from a few miles south and west of there, produced by Crooked Stave in Colorado. It's once again 6% ABV and a murky, muddy orange-pink colour. There's a sizeable heat to the aroma, hinting at marker-pen solvents amongst the summer-fruit cordial and a flinty sour spice. It's heavy too: I was expecting spritzy, but this has an almost jammy feel, accompanied by a headache-inducing heat. Oof. Crooked Stave generally does sour properly, and this is properly sour. There's a punchy tart side and obvious berries of some kind -- not necessarily blue -- but it doesn't have the pristine cleanness of a Belgian fruited geuze, or even Crooked Stave's own best work in this area.I was half way through when I think I figured out the problem. There's no mention of it on the can, but the internet reckons it's oak aged, and that's what's causing the interference. There's a sweet side I couldn't quite place, only that it's not fruit, and this revelation made me realise it's vanilla. That adds nothing positive, and clashes with the tartness. Of course, barrel-ageing is an essential part of gueze, but it doesn't produce messy flavours like this. Perhaps a lack of maturation is the problem. Some time between now and America's 490th birthday, this might become a properly good beer.
