Reverting to type

"Liquid Hoppiness" is a bit on the nose as a name for a Sierra Nevada beer. That's the thing they've been known for providing since the early 1980s. Nevertheless, here it is: a 7% ABV IPA, claiming to be "juicy" and I wonder before popping the tab if that's simply a trend-chasing word to put on the front of a can containing nothing of the sort.

It is hazy, though lightly so: translucent rather than opaque. It smells hazy too, with a dollop of creamy vanilla coming through first, before satsuma and pineapple. I don't think "juicy" is the word for the flavour. It's sweet all right, but more orangeade-like, with a carbonic sharpness and a pithy bitterness. The vanilla drains away quickly leaving a clean and dry finish.

This is rather tasty. There's nothing fancy going on, and the hop kick isn't as big and bold as some of Sierra Nevada's other IPAs, but there are echoes of both the flagship pale ale and Torpedo in here. They've been given a very slight modernisation though nothing too much. It's bitter at heart and that's how it ought to be.

Odell is another American brewery which made its name with generous hopping back in the heyday of American IPA. Even though classics like their flagship and Myrcenary are still very much around, we also get a lot of... other... stuff from them. Their Sippin' Pretty sour ale, launched a few years ago, has now spawned a rake of brand extensions. I dealt with one of them, Sippin' Tropical, last August, and now here's another, with the inauspicious name of Sippin' Lemonade.

From the branding it appears to be one of those carefree, outdoor, summery fellows that European breweries often create at 4% ABV and below but Americans can't countenance making less than 5%, which is what this is. "Ale brewed with lemons and cane sugar" is the brewery's rather blunt description of it, which does say much about how it's made.

In the glass it's a slightly hazy yellow and the base beer's tartness is immediately apparent in the aroma. Similarly, the flavour starts out puckering and tangy, suggesting rather more souring than most kettle-soured beers get. The cane sugar is asleep on the job, then, but I don't mind. The lemon lands in late and comes with a herbal side which I guess justifies the name: it's lemonade of the classy, cloudy, homemade sort that they're invoking here. Those herbs -- basil and rosemary to me -- occupy the aftertaste and are the best bit. Overall this works well. It's a properly tart sour golden ale while also a summer soft-drink analogue with more complexity than I was expecting. Keeping it simple with lemons yields better sour-beer results than berries or tropical fruits, I reckon. And you can quote me on that.

Finally it's Oskar Blues with Mutant X IPA, seemingly named for some unspecified hop extraction technology. It's a very eggy yellow and 7% ABV. The aroma is fresh and juicy, I'm sure as intended, like mandarin in particular. It's altogether more bitter and even a little savoury on tasting. Touches of fried onion and roast garlic, calming down to lime and grapefruit, before the fruit salad slides in again in the finish. A building weedy resinousness creeps in as it goes along, leaving the tongue coated by the end, in a very west coast way. It's quite the tour of American IPA attributes that Oskar brings us on here. Hard bitterness set on a fluffy New England texture. It's different, but I like it.

None of these three are their respective breweries' best work, but I can't really complain when their excellent core range products were on sale next to them. This is the life I chose and you're under no obligation to follow.

In summery

Two broadly season-appropriate offerings from Odell today, beginning with Sippin' Tropical. This is a variant of their Sippin' Pretty sour beer, one I wasn't terribly impressed by back in 2019. Here they've replaced the açaí, elderberry and whatnot with pineapple, passionfruit and tangerine, which sounds like a much more attractive proposition. It's still just 4.5% ABV too. There's a cleanly tart aroma with a hint of the tangerine but not much fruit otherwise. It gets a little busier on tasting, with all three elements represented, but quite muted overall. I'm especially surprised at the passionfruit not showing off for once. The mild fruit matches a mild tartness making for some quite plain thirst-quenching. This is fine for those summer drinking occasions where it only has to be cold and fizzy, but don't expect much beyond that.

Hazer Tag was added to their range two years ago, when I guess it was apparent that this trend wasn't going away. It's a 7% ABV IPA and moderately hazy: a translucent orange rather than yellow emulsion. There's a citrus tang in the aroma, not quite juicy but juice adjacent, and a slightly worrying dry savoury edge as well. The juice asserts itself on tasting, coming with a slightly inappropriate intense sweetness, leaning it away from real oranges and towards cordial territory. Thankfully it doesn't go too far. A balancing bitterness follows; a lemon or lime bite that keeps the sweet side and a heavy mouthfeel from clogging up the palate. Finally the savoury element materialises only briefly in the very finish, flashing fried onions and burnt rubber. Nothing to worry about, however. It's no stunner, and possibly not even up to the stellar standard of Odell's more established beers, but like the one before it, it gets the job done.

These cans cost €2.50 each in Molloy's and as such represent pretty decent value for money. If they're still available one could do a lot worse than stock up on them for whatever casual al fresco drinking is left to us this year.