We are hop mad, as you can probably tell from our name, but this newish brewery out of California uses hops to the maximum! We have already had the ‘hoparillo’ and it was excellent so here’s to the next one.
Poured into a pint, we get a big off white head of 2 fingers which retains beautifully to leave a foamy/sudsy 10mm cap. Body is a clear dark yellow golden colour with minimal carbonation present. Strong aroma of caramelised malts, grapefruit/citrus, and booze. First sip in the mouth yields a peppery hit on the lips, with a contained smooth bitterness that we weren’t expecting to be so mild, and a very well hidden malt to alcohol ratio. Big full body here in the mouth, plenty of depth to it. Grapefruit and lemon or lime really coats the palate, along with decent pine. As we continue sipping, the bitterness starts to really show itself, almost like it’s creeping up on you. This drop has an IBU of 102 so we were expecting a punch in the mouth, but it hasn’t done this yet. Low carbonation in the mouth which is good because it would be too intense on the taste buds. The hops definately dominate here, as the malts are in the background providing gentle sweetness and drowns out the potential booze burn of 9% alc vol. Nice big wall of lacing here too. Mostly a dominant grapefruit, orange peel, lemon/lime flavour profile with a resin like hit. As we near the bottom of the glass we start getting a dank vegetable like hit. We have noticed this in some IPAs and lucky it’s only mild here as its off putting. We have to give credit here for how smooth the bitterness is. Overall, this is a tasty DIPA but not as good as the hoparillo.