Flying Luponic

Firestone Walker is today's brewery of interest, starting with their take on the new category of low-strength, low-calorie IPA.

Like recent reviewees Oskar Blues One-y and Lagunitas Daytime, FW Flyjack is 4% ABV, and it wears its 96 calories as a badge of honour on the front of the can. Though badged as a hazy IPA it's very pale and watery looking, and barely hazy at all. The aroma is excellent, though: an enticing citrus/tropical buzz. That carries happily through to the flavour, with gummy apricot and cantaloupe, some mango, tangerine and a splash of pineapple. What lets it down is the texture: these sorts of flavours need a bit of substance behind them and here they're given no foundation, just a watery fizz. There's no time to enjoy the taste before it fades off the palate leaving just a carbonic burn. It's not a bad beer by any means, but it's annoyingly tantalising in the way it offers a superb flavour profile compromised by a need to stay light-bodied. If you start from a position of wanting a 96-calorie beer, however, I can't think of one better.

To get a proper kick (5.9% ABV) I turn to the Luponic Distortion IPA series. I last tried the 13th iteration, and this is No. 14, though the series itself has moved on a couple since. "White Grape, Mandarin Orange, Passion Fruit" yells the can in all-caps, presumably in an attempt to influence what you taste before you taste it. It smells sweet and quite sticky, somewhere between Chewits and red vermouth. The flavour is much more interesting, however: lots of weedy dank and oily winter herbs like rosemary and sage, plus a dollop of the same creamy coconut so dominant in the last one. Since it's not the freshest, it's possible the subtler fruit aromas and flavours have disintegrated, but what's left is still a perfectly drinkable American IPA.

Life moves pretty fast, and we skip 15 to reach Luponic Distortion No. 16, a mere three months in the can when I opened it. The silly fruit thing seems to have gone by-the-by and there's a more serious bitter resin quality here, leaning in to savoury courgette, ripe red apple and a sharp finish of wax and match heads. This is a taciturn, chin-stroker of an IPA, the sort they don't make much these days. More than the matured examples I had before, I would believe that this has had the aroma and foretaste subtleties aged out of it, but that can't be true -- it's relatively fresh but I guess just less interesting and less enjoyable. Nowt wrong with it, and if you're a haze-hater you should buy all you see, but I was underwhelmed.

Still, the great thing about numerical series is that there'll be another one along in a minute.

A mountain range

I built up a tidy little collection of Odell beers over the past few weeks from here and there, all of them new to me. Let me take you through what I found.

Oh hey: here's an interesting starting point. A few weeks back I jibed that when American breweries make beer at 4% ABV they make them thin because they regard that as a compromised beer strength to begin with (my beer in point was Lagunitas Daytime, which isn't thin but tastes terrible, but anyway). I got a chance to try and back up my slur when I noticed the tiny print on Odell Good Behavior reveals it too to be the big four-point-oh. It does look a bit thin, being a pale yellow infused with a sickly haze, and while it's not offensively watery, it does lack substance. This is plainly designed to be quaffable and easy, but I think they have undercooked it somewhat in doing that. There is a generous dusting of the Odell magic, however: a flavour which bounces joyfully between succulent mango, tangy tangerine and sticky marijuana buds. It's all a bit muted, however, like they want it to be bigger and bolder but can't possibly manage it at this strength. Loser talk. On balance, I like it. There are echoes here of Little Fawn, which remains world class and objective best of breed. This isn't a bad take, but still streets away from what British breweries can do at 4% and below.

Next we have Witkist White, a "grapefruit white ale". From that I expected an extra-bitter twist on your standard witbier, but this is pretty much a standard witbier. It's a normal 5% ABV and a medium hazy yellow. The aroma shows off its coriander and orange peel well, but where's the headline grapefruit? I couldn't find it in the flavour either. The citrus that's present isn't bitter but instead has the marmalade tang of a wit, while the herbs add a pleasant savoury balance. And that's your lot. I could very much believe I was drinking something Belgian, so full marks for not taking an established European style in a silly direction, but I could have just had a Hoegaarden and saved myself some food miles. Two mouthfuls in I stopped grumbling, sat back, and just enjoyed a well-made beer.

Also on a Belgian kick is the Odell kriek, Friek. It's a fairly powerful one at 6.9% ABV and is a pleasing clear russet colour in the glass. There's quite a funky, Bretty aroma with only a faint trace of sweet and fizzy cherryade behind it. What was I letting myself in for? First sip brought a rush of contrasting complexities. A punchy sourness scorches across the palate at the beginning, bringing cherries in its wake: sour at first but quickly turning riper and rounding and fading out on a sweetish maraschino note. A modest funkiness permeates this, adding a kind of seasoning which I think helps draw the fruit out. A twist of white pepper seasons it further. I should add that this is the 2015 vintage so it's perhaps an extra testament to the brewers that it hasn't turned completely to vinegar. By the time I poured myself a second glass I had become accustomed to the acidity and was enjoying a lovely, and balanced, funky kriek. 

Moving on up, next it's an "imperial mango IPA" and even from reliable Odell that description fills me with apprehension. Tree Shaker is 8% ABV. It smells innocent enough, of fresh and juicy mandarins, and I will note that it's clear -- what a novelty! The flavour is more tropical; still with significant mandarin but I get a fleshy fruit side too which is course the mango but could equally be pineapple or guava. I wouldn't say it's hop forward, exactly, but it's dry rather than sweet and although it's weighty in a proper double IPA way it's not syrupy. Taken as a whole it's very well done: integrated, nuanced and, dare I say, balanced. One wouldn't have thought that wanging mango puree into a big IPA takes a whole lot of skill, but this is experly done. Fruit-IPA sceptics, take note.

We finish on Fernet Aged Porter, which is a half-truth, being formed from 50% barrel-aged beer and the rest being just straight porter. I guessed I was in for an extreme experience if 100% barrel aged didn't work out. It's also no lightweight at 9.4% ABV. Getting a photo with the head in place was a struggle, the tan-coloured foam fading quickly. The rest of it is a dubious swampy dark-brown colour. The aroma offers a mix of herbs and treacle and the texture is surprisingly light. Something about strong dark beers in a prestige bottle makes me expect rich and sumptuous; this isn't thin but has the easy going mouthfeel of a beer half its strength. That in turn means it isn't extreme or difficult, but also not terribly complex. You get a good buzz of liquorice, some mid-strength black coffee and a twang of soy sauce umami, and that's it. It left me wanting to taste both the straight porter and the Fernet-saturated version that made it up. I think both would be more thrilling than their rather sober progeny. I can't fault this, but I expected a bigger bang, given the specs.

The beers put out by Odell are nothing if not diverse and the quality is pretty consistently high. They're very reasonably priced too, by and large. If you're not already on this particular bandwagon now is a great time to jump aboard.

Easy company

Sierra Nevada's Hazy Little juggernaut rolls ever onwards. After the double iteration and the session iteration, now we get the soured fruity iteration. Does anyone else suspect they're associating beers with Hazy Little Thing purely for marketing reasons? Wild Little Thing is a long way from New England IPA. It's barely even hazy, for one thing, appearing no more than a misty shade of pink in the glass. The aroma is all sweet and no sour, with strawberry concentrate and tropical guava driving that. Strawberry dominates the flavour, though in fairness to it, it's tangy rather than jammy. There's a ripe and tropical richness behind this, and I was hoping for a proper sour spike in the finish but instead it tails off into watery fizz. This is more an alcopop than a beer, and unworthy of being part of the Hazy Little Thing brand extensions, or even the Sierra Nevada line-up.

I bought it in the expectation there would be more Sierra Nevada beer along soon that I could build into a blog post. Several weeks later there was no sign so I gave up and revisited one from an established American brewery to bulk out the post.

An IPA at just 4% ABV? Wow! The Yanks will have mastered the English IPA style in no time at this rate. Lagunitas Daytime session IPA is a crystal-clear pale yellow with a tall stack of stiff froth looking, well, like a perfectly poured glass of Heineken. It used to be 4.6% ABV and full of lemon sherbet. Now the flavour is big on onions, red ones in particular, finely sliced and fried. It's the kind of thing that's enjoyable as a side dish, but being given a whole bowlful to chomp through is a chore, and that's what happens here. There's really very little else going on in the taste; after the onions it tails off and leaves you with more onions in the aftertaste. On the plus side it's not thin or watery: I think American breweries tend to give up on texture when they get down to these low ABVs, but the mouthfeel it has just gives more leverage to them onions. A hard pass on this one.

Both breweries are better than this, and its especially disappointing that Lagunitas changed Daytime for the worse. Never fear, I have a stack of new beers from Odell, New Belgium, and whatnot in the fridge to try. They won't let me down, will they?

States of mind

For a festival organised by a US-based company, we weren't exactly drowning in American beer at Alltech Brews & Food 2015. It took a bit of hunting to find what was there. Obviously, Alltech's own beer was front and centre, including the new Kentucky Honey Barrel Ale. This is mahogany red and has a very woody bourbon nose. Vanilla is massively dominant in the flavour and, coupled with a huge sugary sweetness and a high level of carbonation, the overall effect is very like a bourbon and coke. Not something I'm looking for in a beer.

Meanwhile, at the Grand Cru stand, they had tapped up Lagunitas Cappuccino Stout. The coffee flavour isn't too overdone here and at its heart it's a simple middle-of-the-road dry stout. Lagunitas DayTime was much more fun, all bright sherbet lemons and more serious heavy resins finishing perfectly cleanly for bonus drinkability. And all at 4.6% ABV, making it a session IPA truly worthy of the style.

DayTime, like the remaining American beers in this post, came from the Dublin Cup bar, where leftover beers from the international competition go to be disposed of. It's a wonderful idea and I took full advantage. Where else would you get to try Schlafly Oatmeal Stout, a marvellously smooth and sweet number, using its 5.7% ABV to give it extra welly but staying soft and approachable at the same time. The same can't be said for New Holland's Dragon's Milk, a 10% ABV imperial stout given far too long in bourbon barrels coming out the other side dripping with vanillins and only a late rush of milk chocolate offering any kind of complexity.

Back to simple and subtle again, and Major Tom's Pomegranate Wheat by Fort Collins brewery is light on fruit but makes good use of the dry flavour from the pomegranate for a very refreshing end result. Dark Horse's Crooked Tree IPA is also nicely refreshing, though perhaps darker and a little sweeter than many of its contemporaries. There's a lovely hard orange candy flavour but nothing blaringly bitter or citric. It's one that's worth taking time over, not that I did.

Two rather plain sweet dark ales to finish on. I've been very impressed with Great Lakes beers in the past but Conway's Irish Ale didn't do it for me. It offers only a few crumbs of biscuit and a dry mineral edge but otherwise failed to hold my attention. Similarly, Smuttynose Old Brown Dog is dark red and mostly tastes of caramel. This time the extra dimension comes from a few wisps of roasted grain but there's not really enough to make it interesting.

Some quality beers here, but nothing too daring or different in this selection. I've saved the more thrilling beers for the last couple of posts.