“These California bears have gone down under! We partnered up with our buddies from Alvarado Street Brewery to make this bright and dry west coast-style IIPA featuring an exorbitant amount of Galaxy, Vic Secret, and Nelson hops. When two beloved California breweries draw inspiration from Australian and New Zealand hops, you know the collaboration has to be “Oso Under!” Cheers!”

Glassware: IPA.

Appearance: Bright golden amber pour with a fair haze happening. Two fingers of well retained head perched on top and a smattering of lace is left behind.

Aroma: It’s actually incredible how they’ve managed to attain such a pure and conventional WC IPA aroma with Anitpodean hops (Galaxy, Vic Secret & Nelson Sauvin). It’s absolutely brimming with fresh citrus i.e lemon, grapefruit and tangerine, lashings of unripened peach, pine, kumquat, passionfruit, spring onion and freshly cut grass. It does have a slight catty accent to it but we don’t mind it in West Coast IPA’s. Solid!

Flavour: Following on from the nose with big impressions of fresh citrus, tropical fruits and pine. Definitely getting more herbals as opposed to the nose; slightly dank and a little ganja-like, spring onion and peppery rocket. It hits a pithy note midway and citrus rind then carries through to the mildly sweet but mostly dry and bitter finish which shows a bit of tart gooseberry from the NS hops.

Mouthfeel: Kind of soft, mineraly and a little dry. Medium body, Co2 is spot on and so is the 7% ABV.

Overall: Definitely exceeded expectations. It’s a sad indictment when the yanks can use our hops better than most Aussie brewers! It’s also impressive to see them used so effectively in a West Coast IPA. Move over Citra, Simcoe and Centennial!