Siren - The Tickle Monster
It's Day 11, it's a Friday night and it's a 330ml can - Jack and I had similar thoughts on what the lovely folk at PH had given us and to be honest we weren't miles off! I said Basqueland, he said Buxton - we both said TIPA!!
Dan
Siren is a good example of a brewery that divides the craft community - some people are big fans, regularly posting reviews of Siren's seasonal specials and diarising the release of their annual 'Caribbean Chocolate Cake' series and other BA projects. Others, and I would place myself in this category, just find them a bit underwhelming. I like their 'Broken Dream' but am yet to try anything else that really impressed.
I was close to buying this 11% TIPA brewed with mango and cedar wood at the time of the release and it has a decent UT score. Boasting a five-fingered hop bill of Amarillo, Citra, Mosaic, Chinook and Simcoe I had high hopes for this one and yet as soon as it entered the pie-hole, I was achingly underwhelmed by its considerable lack of flavour.
There was some resinous pine and perhaps the faintest trace of mango but it was all a bit flat, a bit medicinal and at 11% a waste of good units. Just to be a real Victor Meldrew, I found the beer name and accompanying description asinine although whole-heartedly admit, if the beer was a cracker (and we weren't mid pandemic) I would be chasing Jack around the pub, fingers a-claw proclaiming myself as The Tickle Monster!
Score - 3.50 (downgraded from an overly generous 3.75 on air)
Jack
There really isn't much or me to say about this on. Given the quality of the TIPAs that have come onto the market this year, you might have had high hopes for this. Certainly the ABV and the adjunct list make this an intriguing proposition. I guess the intrigue remained once I cracked this open, but it was more of a "what the hell compelled you??" sort of intrigue.
If you are into flat, overly alcoholic beers that proclaim themselves to be TIPAs without really giving any hoppage, that incorporate that fan-favourite flavour of cedar wood (yeah, I don't know either), and that basically just taste like burnt sugar, then this might be the beer for you. I must be a grouch because the tickle monster left me decidedly less than amused.
Score - 1.5
To watch Jack throwing a hissy at the Tickle Monster, click here.
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