It's day 5 of my solo adventure through the Beer52 advent calendar and it really is beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. Being a generally curmudgeonly sort of fellow, I have, in the past, been less than predisposed to festive gaiety, but I am trying to turn over a new leaf, embrace positivity, be the best me I can be, and all that sort of thing. Hell, I even watched a Christmas movie yesterday - it was utter shit, I mean barely watchable, sentimental drivel, the kind of crap that expects the audience to suspend disbelief to such a degree that they will actually accept that there would be snow at Christmas in the UK. But I watched it and bit my tongue, so I really must be having my Scrooge moment.
Session IPA
Style - IPA
Brewer - The Garden Brewery & Hercules
Hops - Mosaic Incognito, Mosaic Spectrum, Azacca, Bru-1
ABV - 4%
The beer
Today's surprise from the big box o' fun is the Garden Brewery & Hercules' Session IPA. This is part of Garden Brewery's Restore Our Earth Collab Fest 2022 in which they collaborated with 16 breweries from across the globe and promote action-focused environmental initiatives through tythe.org. All of this is very cool, and if you can donate, perhaps you should. But I am here in this instance for the beer.
The first thing I can say about this beer is it is fizzy, I mean the open it over the sink kind of fizzy. I like a fizzy beer, but I don't necessarily want to have to wash down my kitchen surfaces after opening one.
With that level of fizz I wasn't expecting a bodacious body on this, and I didn't get one. But hey, it's a session IPA clocking in at a perfectly Breathalyzer friendly 4% (don't drink and drive) not a 8% oat cream enriched double IPA juice bomb, so what do you expect?
What you should expect from this is a nose full of fruit. I'm having a hard time putting my finger on exactly what fruit it is, but it's tropical. The can suggests pineapple, which is definitely present, but there's a little more to it than that, or maybe a little less. There isn't the overpowering tangy sweetness of unadulterated pineapple about this, there's something else, like lime maybe? Perhaps a touch of grapefruit? (I have actually gone back and looked at the can and it says pineapple and citrus, so that stacks up - I should have read that first). The flavours here are good, but they aren't smacking me around the head, the smell is more like tropical fruit juice from concentrate than fresh fruit salad.
The flavour notes carry well on the tongue though, where they are met with a very pleasing, well rounded bitterness. Again, this doesn't bash you about, it's just there, nice and gentle, a measured amount of bitterness, no real bite. Despite the ultra fizziness of this, the texture in the mouth is very nice, it drinks well above its ABV with enough stickiness to keep the flavours hanging around long after the point of swallowing.
There's a lot right about this beer, I would drink it again and if I was at a work's Christmas dinner I would happily sling these back all night, and you would too. But, if I am being honest with myself, I don't love this beer. It's just ok. I mean, it is good for a session IPA, really good maybe, but perhaps its goodness is part of the problem. It feels too precise, too considered but lacking in excitement a bit of a goody two shoes. Bah humbug.
Score - 3/5
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