“LA upstarts Three Weavers join us in the garage to create Zeppelin Bend – a bright & clean ‘new wave’ West Coast IPA, bursting with a combination of us experimental, and harvest fresh New Zealand Rakau & Nelson Sauvin from Freestyle Hop farm.”
Glassware: IPA glass.
Appearance: Bright golden amber with 100% transparency. It forms a two finger head which holds up and leaves a smattering of lace strewn about the glass.
Aroma: Certainly in the West Coast style that’s for sure. Smells of sweet orange citrus, papaya, mango, passion fruit, grapefruit, white grapes and gooseberry. The malt bill is semi sweet lending subtle hints of honey and caramel fudge. It has this overall crisp and ultra clean quality to it…really nice.
Flavour: Getting quite an aggressive grapefruit bitterness on entry…bolstered further by a bit of warming booze. It follows on with more bitter notes of orange peel and unripened white grapes. Tasting a flutter of malt sweetness late in the piece as it finishes with some astringent booze and hop bitterness.
Mouthfeel: Sharp, punchy but also rather crisp and clean. Mild-moderate body with healthy co2. 8% AbV – quite prominent.
Overall: Really don’t know what to make of this one…not entirely sure if the hop profile (Rakau and Nelson Sauvin) fits the style. Other than that it’s a well structured IPA with bitey hops and belly-warming booze. Not a bad way to round out this brilliant Hapi Sessions collaboration.