Hudson Valley Brewing ‘Emissary’ Sour IPA

Rating:

45700663_979453038905508_1891392039677853696_n“Sour IPA with raw wheat, malted oat, milk sugar, vanilla beans, and orange peel — hopped with Hallertau Blanc and Azacca.”

Glassware: IPA glass.

Appearance: Milky and super hazy light yellow pour with a fizzy two fingers head. It completely vanishes and no head equals no lace!

Aroma: Interesting. Kind of has an earthy tang going on with lots of apricot, peach, candied pineapple, kiwifruit, passionfruit, lemon curd and orange peel. It does have a hint of creamy lactose/oats along with dry grain husks and very subtle hints of white grapes. Not much sourness to it we must admit. Meh, we’re a little undecided at this point.

Flavour: Follows on from the nose. Mostly stonefruit-dominant i.e apricot, peach, rockmelon with a flutter of creamy orange. Getting a very mild sourness early in the mid but it’s easily overcome by the creamy vanilla, lactose and oats. There are hints of NEIPA-ish fruit juice developing late and finishing with soft floral peach and candied tropical fruit.

Mouthfeel: Light on, semi sparkling and uber refreshing. The 6% AbV is extremely well hidden with minimal lip pucker and IBU.

Overall: We’d say it’s about 70% NEIPA to 30% sour with a metric tonne of peach. Look it’s a reasonably good drop but it became a little difficult to finish….the peach flavours were very prominent and the sourness is practically MIA. Good but not great.