I dip my toes into the heady, boozy world of the Quad IPA, wish me luck!
Northern Monk/The Old Flax Store Projets - OFS024
ABV - 12.5%
Hops - Citra Incognito, Citra Cryo, Idaho 7 7 Nelson Sauvin
Writing this I am coming off a week of no booze, having spent the morning ploughing my way through the writing of a particularly uninteresting report on an even less interesting subject. These are difficult times, for one I have had to return to work following Christmas, that is always a drag, two, we are back in lockdown and the prospect of being able to get back on the road with Dan the Man is becoming harder and harder to see in the distance, three, well... Let's just say the annoyance at number 3 is NSFW.
The only joy of the day so far has been listening to Warren Zevon on repeat and the knowledge that I have a can of Northern Monk's OFS024 that I have been chilling down in the fridge for the last week and which I intend to get stuck into once my working day is done.
Maybe its the Zevon, maybe its the isolation and cabin fever setting in, but I got the idea to do this review as a sort of ode to gonzo, so I will keep writing while I drink this and just see where we end up. (Actually I have been drinking it all the way through so sucks to you, bozo).
The first thing that really hits you with this concoction is the booze, and when I say it hits you it bloody well floors you. Yep, this is a 12.5% IPA but it the booze hits you like a shot of 80 proof rum. Is that a bad thing? I don't think so, well not from where I am sitting right now. It is -1 Celsius outside just now and this level of booze is warming my cheeks nicely. But, I suspect this is not a beer for warmer or happier times, it's too big and beefy, too dominating, too serious, it is a beer for bad times, like whiskey, I don't think this is a beer for happy thoughts of rainbows and kittens, this is a beer for long dark nights of the soul, and I love it for it.
Let's get into flavours and whether there are any beyond raw ethanol, don't worry, there are. For my money this tastes a bit more like something Verdant would come up with than a Northern Monk offering - which if you know my tastes and preferences, will tell you this is a good thing. I get a mass of over-ripe papaya, a bit of banana and a whole load of dank, but not the boiled cabbage/blue cheese/sprout dankness you might expect from the amount of citra in this, its more a fruit stall in a hot climate sort of dank, the taste and odour of soft fruit on the turn, and it is good. (I'm about halfway through this at the moment and I and starting to feel the booze behind the eyes in a very strong sense).
Shall we discuss mouthfeel? I think we shall. This beer is on the tongue as I fear I am to the eye at the moment, i.e. a little flabby. Unlike my body though, the flabbiness of OFS024 is a good thing. Northern Monk have used a combination of barley, wheat and oats in the mash for this one, meaning that it coats the tongue in a very pleasing way - almost holding the booze at bay, but giving in at the last minute and letting the glorious heat of the ethanol wash away the fruit.
I just took a massive - too large - swig of this and got a little hint of coconut and passionfruit, which was nice, however, don't take massive swigs, I really struggled to swallow that just now and it would be a shame to spit this out. That being said, I am down to the last few sips and I think it is fairly clear that I am enamoured of this beer, I really am.
However, I reckon Northern Monk could have gone a lot stronger on the hoppage, yes there are some amazing flavours here, but there is a word missing from this review that should really be present in any IPA review - bitterness. There is barely any. I feel that if you are going to ramp the ABV up to 12.5% you really need to get some good bittering hops on the hot side, to counteract the ethanol if nothing else.
That, however, is just me splitting hairs, this beer is genius. I am currently sitting with about a mouthful left and a fantastic little buzz on and I'm about to head out into the cold with the pup for a walk. However, before I go, and before sink the very last drop of this almighty brew, I think I had better wrap this up. This beer is incredible, but can we, at this point, really call it an IPA? There is nothing about this that harkens back to the good old bitter IPAs of yesteryear, this is something else entirely, this is slightly fruity, slightly dank hop wine. Yes, that's what it is, hop wine. Next brewer to make a QIPA, market it as hop wine and I will buy a case (or contact us here and send us one for free, if you really want!!)
Oh well, nothing left to do now but to tank it and rank it, it has been my real pleasure, toorah.
Score - 4.5 (would have been 4.75 had there been a touch more bitterness and a 5/5 if it had the bitterness and a touch more citrus zing)
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