99 BOTTLES OF BEER

Abbeydale Brewing Company, Sheffield, South Yorkshire:

• When I first tasted this beer years ago on cask, I remember being disappointed, because I was fully expecting something as heavenly as Abbeydale Deception was back then. And as this had a higher ABV than Deception, I never chose it again. But here in a can in the safety of my own home, it’s pleasant enough, especially on this bitterly cold night.Absolution (5.3% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
• Brewed for Sheffield Beer Week, this is described as a “Mountain-style pale ale, a hybrid West Coast IPA and NEIPA with Citra, Cascade, and Mosaic hops.” it does offer quite a powerful hops presence for a less-than-5% beer. It was a great end to a day that started with a surprise rainbow, followed by some gorgeously delicious coffee. Oh, and an ordinary day at work, of course--so this was a reward as well as a celebration.Cloud Peak Cryo Session IPA (4.8% ABV -- reviewed 30 April 2023)
• This is a double IPA with ESB yeast, Ekuanot and Mosaic cryo hops, and it’s gold in colour but tastes much darker. Good god, it’s very intense. I feel that it’s bit too adventurous for my tender soul the early May night that I drank it, worried sick about my mother in California who was not well, after searching for green walks through the woods to calm my trembling soul. This beer needs fortitude to drink. Call to Adventure (8.2% ABV -- a collaboration with Beatnikz Republic, Manchester -- reviewed 6 June 2020)
• It was a tough week, tough days, with lots of rain, Andrew’s injured back, and my work getting suddenly busy, with 98% of the university students walking around unmasked. So I was looking forward to trying this. I do like Heathen, on cask or draft or in the can, and I do love cryo hops. So I had high hopes for this. And oh yes, yes! It was a welcome reward: gorgeous! Each sip massaged my shoulders and kissed my face all over. This is a truly loving beer, a most happy marriage of Cryo and Mosaic hops . Apparently it was brewed in celebration of Abbeydale Brewery’s 25th anniversary, which is definitely something to celebrate. Earlier I was reading about the distinction between the words inverse and converse. The inverse of a statement is achieved by negating both its hypothesis and its conclusion. For instance, the inverse of “if JC is drinking Cryo Heathen, then she’s drinking a good beer” would be “If JC isn’t drinking Cryo Heathen, then she’s not drinking a good beer.” This would be a logically defective, or false, statement, as would be the converse: “If JC is drinking good beer, then she’s drinking Cryo Heathen.”Cryo Heathen (5.0% ABV -- reviewed 14 December 2021)
• This New Zealand pale ale was first brewed by Abbeydale in 2008, and I remember it with fondness. Brewed with Nelson Sauvin hops, this is my first experience with it as a craft beer. Fortunately it’s quite pleasant, even though it doesn’t have the wow! factor of the original recipe of cask ale way back then. But hey, it’s been 13 years, so everybody changes and grows, even beers. It was pleasant and undemanding for the afternoon’s locals birthday Zoom quiz, this time featuring a screenful of friends with fake white beards and mouths full of plastic hair fibres. Once the birthday surprise is over, I think I may remove my deception of a beard in order to properly drink my liquid Deception.Deception (4.1% ABV -- reviewed 20 July 2021)
• This version of Deliverance is double dry hopped and very strong. The skull’s head on the label made me think of Halloween, which was the day before I drank this, and even more so of the next day, El Dia De Los Muertos. But that high ABV made me very glad that I didn't have to walk anywhere. I have to admit this was definitely high-alcohol tasty, and oh so hoppy, with plenty of Cryo and T90 hops as well as oats and lactose. Yeah, this is a complicated beer. It had been raining steadily outside and very cold, and I’d given up on going outside at all. So this, my deliverance, seemed like a most appropriate beer.Deliverance DDH Mosaic IPA (8.5 ABV -- reviewed 14 December 2021)
• There are currently two different Abbeydale Deliverances out right now, and this is definitely the stronger one. Brewed with Galaxy and Vic Secret hops, it’s a nice familiar hops combination. But I must say it’s pretty, wow, Stronge. And yes, I mean to spell that with an E. And probably an X as well, as in Strongxe. I will definitely feel this can when I’m finished with it.Deliverance DIPA (8.5% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
• As the pubs have all closed for the duration of the coronavirus lockdown, my future pub updates for the next few months will be strictly of bottles and cans enjoyed at home. This was my first can during this period of confinement. Brewed with barley, oats, wheat, and Yakima Chief hops, the wild experimental hops that originates from a wild Neomexicanus subspecies, this is described on the can, quite correctly, as juicy citrus, coconut, and bourbon. Wow! It’s a wild, completely unique ride, sort of like the other side of this whole Covid-19 nightmare that everyone in the world is experiencing. Deliverance promises to me that we will get through all of this -- there is a light at the end of this tunnel, however long it may be. Thank you, Abbeydale: I’ve been delivered!Deliverance DIPA Sabro HBC 4720 HBC 692 (7.0% ABV -- reviewed 29 March 2020)
• This is like an intercontinental ballistic missile of Nelson Sauvin, Galaxy, and Idaho 7 Cryo hops. I was looking forward to this. It hasn’t reached 105 degrees F in Sheffield like it was supposed to, and when I walked down the road just now on the shady side of the street, it felt pretty much like any other hot day to me. But then I spent the first half of my life in Southern California, and I just spent three weeks in Bakersfield. I know what hot is, and this 97-degree heat pales compared to the KILLER HEAT DON’T GO OUT OF YOUR HOUSE OR YOU’LL DIE! that the weather agencies had predicted. Anyway, as I sit on my sofa inside the house, with bare feet and dry, sweatless skin, I am appreciating this atomic bomb of intense hops. Yep, life is pretty good this afternoon.Deliverance Intercontinental DIPA (8.5% ABV -- reviewed 20 August 2022)
• This was a typical rye ale, showing a darker copper colour, of course, as rye ales usually do. And it was very hoppy as well. Brewed with Amarillo and Citra hops, then dry hopped with Summit and Columbus, it was described on the can as having notes of pepper, pink grapefruit, and pine. Yep, that described the taste perfectly, and I can’t really add anything to that description. It was another completely satisfying can of beer to sip on a freezing cold spring day. It was quite a weird spring day, actually, with bits of snow and sleet alternating with completely clear skies. I guess the winter wasn’t quite finished yet.Deliverance Rye Double Ale (8.5% ABV -- reviewed 15 November 2022)
• This was a most wonderfully satisfying reward for my earlier impression of Scott Traversing the Antarctic in the constantly rising snow. This is a collaboration with Yakima Chief Hops, with a trio of hops from the Wild Neomexicanus species. The can suggests citrus, coconut, and bourbon, which perfectly describes this really exciting and uniquely versatile combination of hops. Yow! I can also detect a frosty window nearby with a welcoming roaring fire in my soul. Nice!Deliverance Sabro, Talus, & HBC 472 IPA (7.0% ABV -- reviewed 20 March 2023)
• Brewed with Citra hops, this is just a nice drinkable pale ale. I was happy to see the ol’ Doc in cans, as it’s been quite awhile since I’ve enjoyed one of this range in a pint in a pub. So it’s possible I may have had Duck Baffler before, on cask. I do have a fond attachment to ducks these days. The highlight of my long walk into my job three days a week is a stop for some avian meditation at the Weston Park duck pond, where all the mallards descended from two original pairs, and there are also lots of pigeons, crows, coots, and moorhens, as well as larger ducks. (I’m fascinated by the large black duck with white chest who is always with two large white ducks.) On the can of this beer it says the following: "For all your wildfowl acquisition needs. Preferred by 9 out of 10 mallards tested. The other has been donated to a local takeaway to teach him a lesson about loyalty." As I drank this on the first of ten days off work, I realised I would probably not visit my duck friends during my break. So this beer helped me remember them.Doctor Morton's Duck Baffler (4.1% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
• According to the warnings on the can, aside from causing idiocy, blindness, sunstroke and lycanthropy, this may cause double visiondouble vision. At that reasonable ABV, and with all those lovely New World hops, I don’t think it’s a danger. The day is already surprisingly scorchio for Sheffield, so I don’t think I can cause any more damage as far as killer heat waves, flooding, and attacks by urban nuisance wolves. So I’m just sitting back and enjoying this very nice drop and wishing we were sitting in somebody’s garden having a barbecue.Doctor Morton's Demon Drink (4.2% ABV -- reviewed 2 November 2021)
• How exciting to see the ol’ Doc in cans in my local Bargain Booze! I’m quite sure I’ve had this beer in a pub on cask, and now I can drink it at home. On the can, along with lots of other things that Doctor Morton beers also espouse, it says it’s Shameless, and also “By Jingo It Sure Is Tasty”. And indeedie so, it sure the heck is! What a lovely hoppy pale this is, yessireebob!Doctor Morton's Proper Gander (4.1% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
• Brewed with Vic Secret and Galaxy hops, this is glorious. Surprisingly glorious. On a day off, I could have walked to the pub and sat in the garden, and the sun is shining brightly. But it’s been a very changeable day, sudden clouds and heavy thundershowers, so I think I’ll do an un-JC thing and sit inside my house all day and admire the gorgeous day from the dry safety of Inside. This is a lovely beer, and I can read my Saul Bellow book, so I’m happy.Emergence (4.5% ABV -- reviewed 20 July 2021)
• This is an American pale ale brewed with frozen fresh "green" Mosaic hops that have been harvested in the US. Oh yes, ooh-ah! I sense the fresh, bright, green hops, fresh and bright! I see jade green! I see a pint sitting in front of me, somewhere in California. Have my dreams come true yet? Am I visiting my home country, my friends, and my family yet? No, not quite. This is just a preview of what's to come, here in my Yorkshire living room.Fresh Hop Heathen (4.1% ABV -- reviewed 24 March 2022)
• This interesting beer is brewed with Mosaic hops. It's part of Abbeydale's Hop Bretta series, produced as a result of their nano-batch barrel ageing and souring project which uses their house brett culture. This beer, as I poured it from the can, bubbled out, scenting the room intoxicatingly. The sudden explosion caused me to check the use-by date on the can, but it was still in date, so it was just an impressive entrance out of the can and into the glass. As no one was harmed in the decanting process, what a rewarding pleasure this amazingly fragrant beer turned out to be.Funk Dungeon (4.6% ABV -- reviewed 28 November 2019)
• The can describes this beer as a bretted lager which has been aged in a combination of former wine and neutral American Oak casks for 14 months. Apparently it’s brewed in what’s called the Funk Dungeon as Funk Chapter 4. It’s a classic orange-golden sour beer with lagered hops, brett yeast, and skeletons all over the label. So what’s not to like? My sleepless super-stressed soul definitely enjoyed this brew. And while I was drinking it I received the phone call I had been waiting months and months for, that would finally relieve most of my sleeplessness and stress of the past few months. So this beer seemed soooo perfect for this experience. Thank you, my sweet -- sorry, I mean my sour kittykittykitty...Funk Dungeon Heavy Nettle Saison (6.66% ABV -- reviewed 4 May 2020)
• I love Abbeydale’s Funk Dungeon series of interesting beers. This one is single hopped with Tradition hops and bretted with Brett yeast culture and promises the tastes of grass and herbs “ with a funky nature." After our weekly Saturday-with-pub-friends quiz was cancelled, I took a pleasantly dry afternoon walk up the hill -- pleasant except for the sudden scary gale-force Arctic wind that necessitated my weatherproof hood on my French down hiking jacket, which froze solid my fingers when I had to remove them from my warm pockets to carry my shopping home. When I finally managed to thaw out my hands and bring the feeling back to my glass-wielding fingers, I was happy to be drinking a wowily interesting FUNKY beer as the frostbite slowly eased off. This was a pleasantly easy touch of brett and funk, actually, a good beginner’s machine in the Funk Dungeon.Funk Dungeon Hop Bretta - Tradition (4.9% ABV -- reviewed 20 July 2021)
• This is a good strong nettled sour for a dark day in Lockdown April, after a long spell of sunshine. It's brewed with locally foraged nettles and then aged six months in American oak barrels, with a secondary fermentation of a Brett blend. This brew is good for cutting through the darkness. It’s very sour with lots of wow taste. No wonder I like it. I wish I could WhatsApp a can to my friend Mistah Rick, because I know he'd like it, too.Funk In Drublic Barrel Aged Sour Lager (5.2% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Temple of Fun, Sheffield -- reviewed 23 November 2020)
• This interesting brew, which is part of the brewery’s Funk Dungeon series, has been brewed with heritage grain Plumage Archer, then aged in red wine casks and neutral American oak, and finally dry-hopped with Amarillo. Wow! It’s really interesting and different! My Bay Area brewery-tour companion Rick would really enjoy this. It has just the right amount of sour, with a rustic background (yes, grass!), with a gentle funk, peppery and tart orange. The can features a drawing of the American Gothic couple as Funk Dungeon skeletons. This beer is a really nice reward for my exhausting day. The aged wine barrel really comes through, adding a deep oaky dryness to the bottom of the palate. I’d love to be sitting in a big sunny rattan chair on a porch on the plains, with Plumage Archer fields rippling for miles in the distance. And Lassie is waiting next to me, her little suitcase packed, ready to go to the moon. I can smell a gorgeous barbecue in the vicinity, featuring langoustine, roasted corn cobs, tossed salad, and freshly baked Country French bread, all being prepared by the chef who lives next door. Mmm. I can dream, can’t I?Gothic Country Heritage Saison (5.6% ABV -- reviewed 20 August 2022)
• Since I love Galaxy hops, that’s what made me decide to try this dry-hopped lager which contains them. For a lager it’s not bad at all. It would be a nice cold drink to sip while sitting outside on a warm sunny day, which might be...hmm, when? Oh promises, promises...I realise that I’m sitting here drinking lager, but some of the hoppy craft lagers are all right now and then. So there.Heretic Dry-Hopped Lager (4.2% ABV -- reviewed 6 June 2020)
• It’s been a dark, nonstop wet day, a depressing “No Future” sort of day. Due to the fact that I couldn’t sleep past 4:00am, I spent the day thrashing to the Sex Pistols and Dead Kennedys between collapsing and snoozing. But I’m now contentedly drinking my 5pm can of beer, early at 4:15pm, while reading my current book My Year of Meat by Ruth L Ozeki. So I can accurately say I’ve been hibernating today. This Hibernation is dry hopped, with a good balance of citrus, stone fruit, and pine resin, the way I like it at the moment. Yep. I may buy more cans of this, and then I won’t come out until Groundhog Day...2022.Hibernation (4.2% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
• Brewed with Ekuanot, Mosaic, and Idaho 7 hops, this beer perfectly matches the can’s flavour suggestion of fruit and spicy pine. Yes, of course! It was perfect for the suddenly pleasant warmish day which I was most happily enjoying, while all of my British friends were already complaining about it before it was even half over. This beer sent me right back to a breezy California patio. On my second tasting of this beer, I noticed the graphic of a beaver holding what looks like a maple leaf on the can. Once again I found it a surprisingly pleasant and very hoppy beer. It starts with a nice tropical fruit followed by pepper and pine resin, which to me is a perfect recipe. I wonder if Canadian beavers would like it, though...Homestead Hazy Pale Ale (4.3% ABV -- reviewed 20 August 2022, and again on 3 October 2022)
• What a day, nearly a month into Lockdown. I’m struggling with writing a currently irrelevant appraisal when I get a phone call from California that my elderly mom has fallen and broken her hip. And in this Covid-19 world, my brother and sister and unofficial brother can’t go visit her in the hospital, and I can’t fly over there. Talk about emotion...so I log off computers, take the necessary shopping walk, and settle down with my grief-stricken emotions and a can of this beer. Why not? It’s a really great strong hops-powerful brew. As everything seems like different forms of Armagedden today, it’s also very appropriate. Oats, wheat, Amarillo, El Dorado, and Ekuanot hops. Hops are fermented with an Ebbegarden strain of Kveik yeast.Hop Cult Armageddon (6.66% ABV -- reviewed 4 May 2020)
• , this beer is made with Citra, Centennial, and Amarillo hops which have been added throughout the brewing process. It also features lots of grapefruit. Grapefruit itself has given me a terrible stomach for years, but fortunately the brewing process tends to denature everything bad about it. This is quite majestically great and reminds me a bit of Ballast Point’s Grapefruit Sculpin’ IPA. Hang ten, the sun has finally come out!Hopsmash Grapefruit IPA (7.4% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Kuhnhenn Brewing Company, Warren, Michigan -- reviewed 27 August 2020)
• This was my first can of beer for my birthday Zoom session with Mike, our fellow beer-loving Sheffield friend. Featuring an interesting hops mixture of Ekuanot, Eureka, Sorachi Ace, Galaxy, Vic Secret, Citra, and Ekuanot Cryo, and also Windsor Ale and London ESB yeasts, this was definitely a good hazy hop-bitter accompaniment to our always interesting sessions, and it’s quickly become one of my current favourites.Huckster Cryo NEIPA (6.0% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Peddler's Market, Sheffield -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
• This is a Peach Iced Tea beer with El Dorado hops, peaches, and organic sencha tea from Sheffield’s Birdhouse Tea Company, and also hibiscus flowers. I was a bit scared to taste this unusual combination of flavours, but this is actually a really nice beer with a dry peach-friendly hops boing! I’d describe it as having a boingy dry peachiness with a cup-of-tea background. Not only is this a successful beer, but it’s the best name for a beer I’ve seen in awhile.Iced Tea Dead People (4.6% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
• Abbeydale created this beer as a collaboration with Indie Beer Hop Day 2021. Using Idaho 7 hops, it's very light in colour but bitterly hoppy. It had been a frustrating day of no help from IT online chats, as well as no one socially to see or chat with. As sad as it might sound, a good beer can always cheer a person up.Independence Dry Hopped Pale Ale (4.0% ABV -- reviewed 14 December 2021)
• Brewed with Enigma, Ekuanot, and Idaho 7 hops, this is Abbeydale’s first beer intended for cans only, to “embrace the concept of staying at home”. It’s nice and drinkable and very comforting after a frustrating day spent in long queues outside shops only to find what you came for is out of stock. And it’s a soothing reward for trying to get used to yet another new reality, with a mother who has just died in a country that I’m not allowed to visit at the moment, combined with the horrid lockdown situation where all of us but the hermits who are used to this lifestyle are reaching saturation point with their mental health. Mine is certainly disappearing quickly. And if I hear the phrase “for the foreseeable future” once again I’m going to explode. (...while isolated inside my house, of course.)Isolation Session IPA (4.4% ABV -- reviewed 6 June 2020)
• This beer is dry hopped with Sabro, Talus, and El Dorado, with notes of pink grapefruit and coconut. I had a half pint of this recently at Two Sheds, and it was gorgeous. Drinking this out of the can was quite enjoyable, and of course quite exciting with those hops, and it was also a just reward for a stupidly physical day at work. I do love a piña colada every now and then, and I also love a coconut pineapple smoothie. So I’m pretty damn happy with this.King Piña DH Pineapple Pale Ale (5.0% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Good Chemistry Brewing -- reviewed 30 December 2023)
• This collaboration features UK grown Harlequin and Cascade hops, and it's dry hopped with Galaxy and Loral Cryo. So the hops are from all over the place, creating a cosmopolitan, interesting, and totally cool beer. In fact, it's too cool for school, as we used to say. According to Homer's Iliad, Menelaus was a central figure in the Trojan War who led the Spartan contingent of the Greek armyBut apparently Menelaus is also the name of one of the lions that flank the steps of the Council House in Nottingham, so that's where this beer's name comes from.Menelaus New School IPA (5.5% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Castle Rock, Nottingham -- reviewed 25 July 2023)
• After a short after-work pub walk was cancelled due to my friend’s sudden migraine, I came home to enjoy this can. Singled hopped with, for me, a newly revisited hops from my Seattle days, this is also brewed with a New England yeast strain. It’s a really nice hoppy-hoppy beer, light with interesting hints of pineapple and citrus. Yum! It’s like a very yummy palate massage. No debris here.Obsession Amarillo NEIPA (5.6% ABV -- reviewed 20 March 2023)
• When I popped open this can, a heavenly scent filled the room. Oh, heaven on the first taste. Glorious, glorious galactic heaven! I'm in heaven!Obsession Galaxy IPA (5.9% ABV -- reviewed reviewed 25 July 2023)
• I drank the first half of this beer at home unconsciously while I was reading the autobiography of an old friend of my brother’s, after a very lonely day at work where I communicated with not one single human being, followed by a very long wait for a bus. But when I finally stopped to pay attention, I discovered this beer was really good! I never gave Simcoe much thought, but it’s really sort of like dry pinewood smoke. Yum!Obsession Simcoe IPA (5.8% ABV -- reviewed 20 August 2022)
• Hopped with Rakau and Motueka hops and lupulin liquid SubZero Hop Kief (from Freestyle Hops), all grown in the Nelson Sunrise Valley region of New Zealand, this is described as tasting of plum, fig, apricot, and lemon-lime. Yep, it was just my type of beer. I love that lupulin!Okarito New Zealand Pale Ale (4.5% ABV -- reviewed 18 March 2024)
• Finally the Abbeydale delivery of cans arrived at my local off-license, so this was one of my purchases. Brewed with Citra and Cascade and then dry-hopped, it's very cloudy but a lovely, hoppy comfort on Day 14 of the lockdown in these discomforting times. It cleaned and disinfected my soul after a rather scary excursion to the local shop.Reverie (4.2% ABV -- reviewed 4 May 2020)
• This West Coast IPA is a collaboration with Burnt Mill Brewing of Ipswich, Suffolk. A riffle is a reach of stream where shallow fast-moving water is broken by rocks and boulders. Riffles are common in both Derbyshire and Suffolk, so that inspired the name. With my first sip I got a definite Wow! Strong! Bitter! I was swung into a boulder in a torrential rainstorm, which I actually had experienced earlier when I got off the bus to walk the rest of the way to work, and I ended up completely drenched. In fact my clothes were still wet while I was enjoying this beer. Apparently the city of Sheffield has decided that a walking-cycling City Centre is great for everyone, even people who can’t walk, and it completely disregards the typical Sheffield weather. So of course the bus routes make no sense at all for people actually needed to get from Point A to Point B. Oh well, it matches the UK politics of the era...Riffle (4.3% ABV -- reviewed 15 November 2022)
• As it was already January, but still winter, I decided it was time to open one of the cans of festive beers I bought for the holidays. And this is pretty decent! It’s definitely a nice stout, with a good malty background but no treacle--nice and dry, like I like it. I do like my wine, beer, and martinis to be dry, not to mention my clothes when I’m out walking in the wintertime. I’m actually enjoying this stout more than I usually enjoy a stout. Is it because it’s from Abbeydale, which is such a great Sheffield brewery? The can says this is from their Brewers’ Emporium range, brewed with coffee from a local supplier. Nice!Salvation Cappuccino Stout (5.5% ABV -- reviewed 6 February 2023)
• This is brewed with Lemon Drop, Centennial, and Cascade hops, which are all hops I really like. A cloudy beer, this is nice: hoppy with a dryness on the tongue. Considering the massive downpour of rain I had just managed to avoid on my way home from work, the dryness was welcome.Scorpion Bowl IPA (7.5% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Stone Brewery, Escondido, California -- reviewed 25 November 2018)
• This is a light-on-alcohol pleasantly drinkable brew with Citra, Centennial, and Victoria Secret hops. I chose to take this can out into our back garden to sit, for the very first time, as our tiny postage stamp of weedy chaos is finally being tamed into somewhere we can sit and enjoy the sun this summer. A friend of ours stopped over for our very first socially-distancing-but-in-the-flesh visit since early March, so it was quite exciting. As Mike sat in a folding chair at the back of the garden (over two metres away), I perched on the back step, sipping this beer and squinting painfully at the angle at which the sun was piercing my eyes. Still, the easy effect of this beer on my lockdown-claustrophobic mood was lightly optimistic, which is a good thing.Serenity SIPA (3.8% ABV -- reviewed 6 June 2020)
• The subtitle of this beer was Chapter 7, so I suppose that meant it was the seventh episode of Abbeydale’s Funk Dungeon series. This beer was a blend of red ales that had been aged for up to three years in a mixture of French red wine and neural American oak barrels. It was really nice for a sour, as they can often be either too neutral or too fruity. This was the way I like a sour: tawny coloured, leaning toward sour cherry and tobacco, like a starter course for mesquite-roasted salmon (or the red meat of your choice), along with some good crusty rustic Italian or French bread and a proper Caesar salad, accompanied by a bottle of fine red wine, and followed by a dessert course of Stilton and port. Yep, I’ll take that any day. It was a nice fantasy just five days before my stressful travel day during Covid times. Thank god I didn’t have to sip this through a face mask.Sheffield Red Barrel Aged Sour (5.8% ABV -- reviewed 15 November 2022)
• This splendourous brew is a dry hopped orange-infused pale, and it’s quite pleasant, perky, and shiny. There is a definite orange aura about it, peeking out from behind a satisfyingly and typically Abbeydale wonderfully hoppy experience. A can of this was a nice reward for enduring the constantly rainy day, most of it spent setting up my new phone. Dealing with new smartphone and computer systems is always exhausting work, sometimes very frustrating, but it’s pretty much done, and I’m looking forward to testing the amazing camera on it. But that won't be today as it's way too dark and wet outside. Instead I'll just sit here inside and bask in this orange hoppy sunshine.Splendour (4.4% ABV -- reviewed 23 November 2020)
• This is a hazy pale brewed with an exciting partnership of Sabro, Citra, Ekuanot, Chinook, and Centennial hops. Each sip emanates a zingy velvety hops throb with slightly mango-coconut overtones. I’m not really sure where the name has come from, because I know Tupelo as the town in Mississippi where Elvis Presley was born, and also as the source of the excellent Tupelo honey. I suppose I could take a can of this with me to a park and sip it while singing to the bees and gyrating my pelvis. But as it’s raining outside I think I’ll just drink it while lounging on the couch with my book. Probably a wiser decision.Tupelo (5.5% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Salt Beer Factory, West Yorkshire --reviewed 23 November 2020)
• I had been freezing all day, but this warmed me right up. It’s a lovely cold warmer, with a citrus sourness and those lovely hops, and it’s dry hopped with Citra and Columbus. I'd happily pack cans of this for a picnic or a barbecue, not that I can particularly recommend any particular foods with it. But I could see it with a cheese plate featuring some dry crumbly cheeses.Unbeliever Dry-Hopped Sour IPA (5.2% ABV -- reviewed 18 May 2019)
• This beer contains barley, wheat, oats, rice, maize, lemongrass, Kaffir lime leaves, lemon, lime, coconut, and hops. The perfect yellow and green striped can is decorated with tall conifers, which primed me for this uniquely non-IPA -- and practically non-beer -- experience. It was a distinctly lime sour of a beer, actually, meaning it wasn’t very beerlike at all. But I do like margaritas and California and travelling, and I loved my late mother’s margaritas, and also the margaritas in wonderful Mexican restaurants, and even the virgin margaritas my friend Daisy and I enjoyed before a long drive from Long Beach up to Big Bear. Ah, margaritas memories of missed travels and experiences made me want to jump on a plane and fly! And I wanted a proper margarita! But I realised that this startlingly nonbeerlike beer would have to do in the meantime.Unbeliever Margarita Sour Beer (5.6% ABV -- reviewed 20 July 2021)
• I had a can of this one evening. Brewed with coconut, pineapple, and Sorachi Ace hops along with spices, it sounded great because I love coconut and pineapple. But it was a bit thin for a good sour beer and not, um, special enough. I was disappointed, because I do love a lot of Abbeydale's creations. Perhaps it was the new green and purple in my hair that was making me feel I just wanted more than that in my lifeUnbeliever Piña Colada Sour (4.9% ABV -- reviewed 5 January 2020)
• This beer is brewed with a combination of Galaxy, Lemondrop, and Centennial hops. Lemondrop was a new one to me, so I had to find out about this surprisingly appealing hop. Apparently it's an offshoot of Cascade, but it does seem to be distinctly lemony. My bottle of Voyager was lemony, refreshing, and really pleasing, perfect for easing a head cold. In fact, this is an excellent brew! I shall definitely go back to the shop and buy a few more of these for my home enjoyment.Voyager IPA #3 (5.6% ABV -- reviewed 30 December 2017)
• This was my second can on Day 1 of the Covid-19 Lockdown. Brewed with Citra, Centennial, and Mosaic hops, this is just a good crisp yacha-yacha-zing! sort of brew. Very drinkable and uplifting, as if I’m voyaging into the future on the other side of this pandemic.Voyager IPA (5.6% ABV -- reviewed 29 March 2020)
• I first tried a can of this beer at the end of the first week in lockdown, way, way back in distant March. Yesterday afternoon I took a three-mile walk into new territory for me, into Crookes Cemetery and then on into long country paths I had yet to know existed, and where they went I did not know, armed only with a bottle of Magic Castle water and my trusty GoogleMaps GPS to help me if I should become lost in the wilderness. It was a very fun walk, and once I was home I thought I deserved to reward myself with a Voyager. This is a really good beer, just really satisfying to a hops lover, with a great classic combination of Citra, Centennial, and Mosaic hops. As I sat and sipped back safely at my homestead, I felt like a trail blazer, a pioneer, JC Oakley or perhaps Calamity JC. Yep, this is a rip-roaringly good brew.Voyager IPA #1 (5.6% ABV -- reviewed 6 June 2020)
• Brewed with Galaxy and Vic Secret hops from Australia, this beer offers a flavour panoply, pastiche, or palette of pineapple, passion fruit, peach. And it's hazy as well. I really needed the tropical hops massage, because the weather has been way too non-tropical, with constant rain, massive winds, bitter cold, flurries, hailstorms, and flooding. It was actually too constantly wintery all day long that I couldn't even venture out for my walk. That's some serious weather.Wanderer Aussie IPA(6.5% ABV -- reviewed 24 March 2022)
• This strong, flavourful, and hoppy beer was obviously so impressive I forgot to write anything about it! Oops...Wanderer Citra & Cascade NEIPA (6.8% ABV -- reviewed 4 May 2020)
• This contains Cryo hops in a combination of Cascade, Centennial, and Mosaic. When I popped open the can, another wonderful aroma spewed out into the air. Hops-in-the-box! Pop Goes The Mosaic! It was lovely after a day of small failures in general (including forgetting my lunch and my second bus being so late I couldn't do my essential errand before work). I suppose the Failure of A Day was caused by the Bus/Lunch Rupture.Wanderer Cold IPA (5.8% ABV -- reviewed 4 September)
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• Brightly hoppy bitter, with a dry berryness, this is much more exciting than the surprisingly boring and vapid Astrid on cask I had just suffered through. (Surprisingly I've enjoyed Astrid on keg and also in the can. I guess the cask version is just a little too tame for me.) This Wanderer is definitely a tonic. I love El Dorado hops anyway. Considering I grew up only three miles from a large park of the same name, I was destined to like them. Of course I also love Galaxy hops, and I suppose I do live right in a galaxy...Wanderer Nelson Sauvin & El Dorado NEIPA (6.8% ABV -- reviewed 24 March 2022)
• Brewed with oats, wheat, and lactose, and single hopped with Mosaic leaf, T90 hops, and cryo hops, this slightly unusual IPA offers a typical tropical and stone fruit bitterness with a hint of sweet. When I poured it into my glass, it produced the strangest head I’ve seen in a craft beer poured out of a can: the light frothy cloud towered all over my glass and reminded me of the head on root beer float. This beer offers an interesting tug-of-war in a glass, under a cirrus cloud cover. It makes me want to fly above those clouds again. It’s interesting, like a volcanic caldera bubbling with icy ozone. Sadly there was the matter of the sensuously smooth, perfectly round glass into which I poured most of the can. As I was sipping this manna from heaven, the glass suddenly slipped out of my hand, and the manna splashed out onto the table and floor in a huge two-thirds-of-the-glass cascade of a deluge… Fortunately I remember where I bought this can, so I’ll be off there for more.Wanderer Oat Cream IPA (6.6% ABV -- reviewed 14 December 2021)
• Described as “bone dry and effervescent, with satsuma, coconut, and grapefruit notes,” this new brew is impressive. To paraphrase the Campbell’s Soup Kid from my American youth, “Mmm-mmm, good! That’s what Wanderer is: mmm-mmm, good!” In fact, this is a wonderful brew, very dry and hoppy with gorgeous essences of good things. The graphic on the can suggests the desert with tall rock formations, something like Bryce Canyon in Utah, perhaps. I know, that’s a weird analogy for a beer, but hey, even the Mormon state has lots of microbreweries, so why not? I mean, this could suggest some place in North Dakota or Colorado instead, or even the Tabernas Desert in Almería, Spain, where Sergio Leone shot many of his spaghetti westerns. Whatever, wherever, I’ll go there in my mind while sipping this splendid beer.Wanderer Sabro & Cascade Brut (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 6 February 2023)
• This is a collaboration with Campervan Brewery of Edinburgh Scotland. With Plumage Archer grain and the experimental hops CF161 and CF162, with US HBC 586 and BCC638 at the dry hops stage, this was a completely new taste to me. It's fruity but with a bamboo-geranium suggestion, and makes me think of playing with my best friend Ann, when I was 4 years old, in the front gardens of my botanist dad and of her gardener of a mother. I can almost smell us digging roads through the fallen leaves and succulent fronds of our Southern California jungles. It's definitely a nostalgic aroma! There's also a touch of dark apricot fruit in there. And I'm back to floating across the Atlantic...Wanderer Transatlantic IPA (6.3% ABV -- reviewed 4 September 2023)
• Brewed with Amarillo, Enigma, and Nelson Sauvin hops, with added Simcoe Cryo, this is just another nice, chewy hoppy brew on a disappointingly sopping-cold-wet-windy day. It's a nice "there, there, let's have some fun!" beer on a disappointingly cabin-fever restless-leg sort of day.Wilderness Northeast Pale Ale (5.5% ABV -- reviewed 24 March 2022)

Abita Brewing Company, Abita Springs, Louisiana:

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• This pleasant, quite fruity IPA is double dry hopped with Citra and Apollo hops as well as some experimental hops, and it's just a nice fruity but very drinkable beer. I was having lunch with my adopted brother Kim at the Steampunk Cafe and Grill in Tehachapi, California, xsand this beer accompanied my smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwich in a cheddar and jalapeno bagel perfectly. Apparently Jockamo means "jester" in the Mardi-Gras Indian language. Bon ton roulez!Jockamo Juicy IPA (6.0% ABV -- reviewed 25 July 2023)

Acorn Brewery, Barnsley, South Yorkshire:

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• 2011: This beer has a lovely bitterrrrrufffruff bite, perfect for washing away the long exhausting workday and the weather that was attempting to be like summer but failing miserably. For a not-bottle-conditioned ale this has great character. It's like meeting someone with a bubbly personality and instantly taking to them. We're talking charisma! 2012: This bottle had a very interesting and almost shocking first impression of orange honey. There's a map of the Philippines on the surface of my glass, not that it's really relevant. I feel like I'm swinging in a hammock in Mindanao amid orange blossoms buzzing with industrious bees. I suppose I should take off my suit of armour so I don't scare the poor little acorns.Conquest (5.7% ABV -- reviewed 28 June 2011 and 12 February 2012)

Adnams & Company, Southwold, Suffolk:

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• Brewed with Victoria Secret hops and Crystal Rye malt, this definitely has that slightly rusty colour and distinctly sharp bitterness that I recall from rye IPAs. Also present is that unforgettably unique Adnams character as well.Crystal Rye IPA (5.0% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021

Allendale Brewing Company, Hexham, Northumberland:

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• One evening at home I tried a bottle of this beer otherwise known as Allendale Pale Ale, brewed with Columbus, Brambling Cross, First Gold, and Galaxy hops and Pale Ale, Caramalt, and Vienna malts. With an IBU rating of, it projected a very nice zig to the tastebuds. It was a good chill-at-home brew to go with the cold day outside.APA (5.5% ABV -- reviewed 1 January 2017
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• The can features an evil rabbit and owl motif, with the announcement that this is “from England’s Lost Wilderness.” There is no mention on the can of the hops, but there is plenty of hare and rabbit imagery, so I don’t quite know what the can is trying to say. (When I hold it up to my ear I can’t hear anything.) Anyway, it’s a typical NEIPA, bitter and cutting in character.Dirty Deeds New England IPA (6.6% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021

Alphabet Brewing Company, Manchester:

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• This is really nice and hoppy. It’s brewed with Mosaic hops and also oatmeal, which seems to be a popular craft beer ingredient these days. This is just a nice pleasing beer. That’s all I can really say. All I can find out about the name of the beer is that it may relate to automatic weapons; but I prefer to believe it may stand for something like Aviators to the Kalahari or even Artichokes to the Kangaroos. How about Accolades to the Kazoos? They never get enough credit.A to the K (5.6% ABV -- reviewed 23 November 2020
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• One evening at home I tried a bottle of this beer otherwise known as Allendale Pale Ale, brewed with Columbus, Brambling Cross, First Gold, and Galaxy hops and Pale Ale, Caramalt, and Vienna malts. With an IBU rating of, it projected a very nice zig to the tastebuds. It was a good chill-at-home brew to go with the cold day outside.Interstellar Getaway (4.0% ABV -- reviewed 27 August 2020
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• On the can of this brew it says “Juicing In The Dark” and ”Born To Juice”. I had just spent a couple of hours in the attic cleaning my collection of old 45 records that I’d accumulated in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a mixture of old hits from the 1960s (for my party tapes and my original band’s encore songs) and independent releases from Los Angeles and Paris bands of the early 1980s (including my own band). The records had been stored in a box in our wet cellar, high up on a concrete table that unfortunately had some sort of water leak from the adjacent wall. The records turned out to be in good shape once I cleaned them, but some of the irreplaceable covers have been wrecked (Suburban Lawns, Prairie Fire, early Go-Gos, and Les Teen-Kats). Anyway, there happened to be one Springsteen record, there, also with the cover damaged, so I thought this tropical IPA would be an appropriate reward. It was pleasant but not very hoppy, so the can was actually more colourful than the beer itself.Juice Springsteen (4.5% ABV -- reviewed 27 August 2020
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• A couple of months ago I took a couple of beers with me to a friend’s back garden in Lower Walkley. Three of us sat on the patio -- socially distanced, of course -- and all amazed by the fact that we used to see each other regularly and actually hadn’t seen each other in three dimensions for over three months. As I was rabbiting wildly on, having obviously been starved for natural physical conversation with full three-dimensional visuals, I happily ploughed through this single-hopped interstellar journey through Galaxy hops, along with a Lallemand New England East Coast Ale yeast strain. After an afternoon of threatening thunder and lightning, the hot steamy pollen-rich day had mellowed out into a pleasantly sunny day with blue sky and friendly clouds, just like the kinds Bob Ross might paint. This was a smooth and easy journey with a happy landing into my next can.Interstellar Getaway (4.% ABV -- reviewed 27 August 2020

Amundsen Brewery, Oslo, Norway:

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• This beer’s can is very pretty, red and turquoise and green with a gold dragon design, sort of a marriage of Aztec and Chinese. And it’s a nice beer as well, brewed with Magnum, Citra, Mosaic, and Simcoe hops as well as lupulin. I chose to drink this beer as a prelude to my Boxing Day Special-Edition Cocktail Party Zoom quiz, which had been delayed by a day because of the quizmaster’s massive Christmas day hangover. All of us were supposed to dress up for the quiz, but several people didn’t, and most of the participants were drinking beer and Prosecco instead of cocktails. So this can of beer was a nice prelude to several gin and tonics. And I even dressed up a bit fancy, wearing a skirt for the first time in a year. How strange it is to be sitting at home, all dressed up, in front of one’s laptop. (No one was to know I was wearing bedroom slippers instead of fancy shoes.) Ink & Dagger Modern Day IPA (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
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• As it’s been two weeks since we’ve had an actual pint of beer, we were delighted to hear that the Fulwood Ale Club, a very new micropub and bottle shop in Sheffield, is offering pickup and delivery of nine-gallon boxed bags of their beers. When I emailed them the other day, the one cask offering wasn’t to our taste, so I went for this keg craft. Brewed with Citra, Mosaic, Amarillo, and Enigma hops with Pilsner malt, this passionfruit pale ale is quite drinkable, very hazy and moderately hoppy. It’s not something I would choose to have more than one pint of in a pub, but we were both quite pleased with it, especially as it’s Norwegian and not British or American. The brewery isn’t very old, and they apparently like to experiment with interesting flavours. So thank you, Ale Club and Norway, for bringing this joy into our home. It’s quite strange to have a bag of beer sitting on your kitchen counter, as the flimsy cardboard box was pretty much destroyed by the time we poured our first pint. So there it is: a big bloblike bag full of pale beer. It just helps add to the surreality of life at the moment.Lorita (4.7% ABV -- reviewed 4 May 2020)

Arbor Ales, Bristol:

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• This is yet another pint-sized can from this great brewery. Full of Mosaic and Citra hops, this beer is really very nice. After a week of thick clouds obscuring any possibility of those of us in Sheffield seeing Comet 2020 F3, or NEOWISE, which has been making appearances in the skies for the past two weeks -- and after a pleasant but short afternoon walk, where for some strange reason I kept walking past small groups of young women who were all drawing up plans -- I was looking forward to popping this beer open. This was my plan, with no blueprint or CAD design initially required. Yeah. This is a good beer. It’s very drinkable, satisfies the hops craving, and I’ve slightly chilled it, so it’s actually quite heavenly. I will definitely buy this again. Rocketman (6.0% ABV -- reviewed 27 August 2020)
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• This is a session IPA that comes in a one-pint can. With Citra, Columbus, Ekuanot, and Mosaic hops, it is surprisingly satisfying, like a good ol’ traditional hop-choppy ale. It’s unfiltered, but it’s not nearly as cloudy as some of the recent vegan beers I’ve had that look alarmingly like pear nectar. This is quite lovely, which is good because there’s plenty more in the can for me to pour into my glass. I do really like Arbor beers, ever since the first one I ever tasted, which was a gorgeous cask ale at the Sheffield Tap several years ago. Someday I’d really like to go to Bristol and check out the beer scene, as well as the art and history and Banksy aspects. Shangri-La (4.2% ABV -- reviewed 27 August 2020)

Art Brew, Sutcombe, Devon:

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• One night at home I tried a bottle of this good, strongly complicated but very drinkably hoppy brew. As I was colouring my hair at the time it seemed an appropriate good quaff while waiting for the chemicals to work. I was reminded of a bottle of Stone IPA from California I drank years ago at my friend Barb's house while she and Daisy were colouring my hair, so it's not so unusual. I did have to take a pause to go wash the colour out, but I had the rest of this to come back to (with freshly coloured hair as well).Art Brew #3 (6.0% ABV -- reviewed 4 April 2016)

Azvex Brewing Company, Liverpool, Merseyside:

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• Brewed with Strata, Idaho 7, and Cashmere hops, there was a lovely, sensual smell emanating from these three fine hops, ultimately melding into a gentle perfume. It wasn't a pow-bam! hops experience; it was more of a subtle wafting, like a hazy whirl of bellydancing hops swirling intoxicating around my mouth, while bells jingled gently. It was a relaxing yet very pleasant experience, with little hints here and there of va-va-voom!Future Landscapes IPA (7.0% ABV -- reviewed 20 March 2023)

Badger Brewery, Blandford, St Mary, Dorset:

• This is a fruity beer, light but strong. This is another good summer beer for a hot Sunday afternoon. The only problem with this beer was that, having only one bottle between two of us, there simply wasn't enough.Golden Champion Ale (6.0% ABV -- reviewed 1 November 1999)
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• This is Badger's top-selling cask ale. Here's the story on their web page: "Many years ago the head brewer John Woodhouse invited the brewing staff to sample his latest creation and select a name for it. Enchanted by its unusually rounded flavour and distinctive straw gold colour, the brewers disposed of several tankards in the quest for a name. When the head brewer rose to go he experienced a sudden loss of steering, a sensation not unfamiliar to wearers of exceptionally long shoes and fell unwittingly upon the name most apt for this legendary ale." My colleague detected a distinct taste of honeyed malt; I clearly perceived little fuzzy rabbits -- clean rabbits, naturally. My colleague said it tasted like velvet -- short-pile velvet, that is, but not velveteen or velour, rather like the texture of Axminster carpet. I thought it tasted checked as opposed to polka-dotted.Tangle Foot Strong Ale (5.0% ABV -- reviewed 1 April 1999)
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Bad Seed Brewery, Malton, North Yorkshire:

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• This is brewed with Lemon Drop, Centennial, and Cascade hops, which are all hops I really like. A cloudy beer, it's nice: hoppy with a dryness on the tongue. Considering the massive downpour of rain I had just managed to avoid on my way home from work, the dryness was welcome.BA + B Double Dry Hopped Pale Ale (4.8% ABV brewed in collaboration with Abbeydale Brewery, Sheffield -- reviewed 19 June 2018)
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• rewed with Citra and Galaxy hops, this beer was named after baseball. It's unfined and unfiltered, so it's very hazy. But oh god, how I love Galaxy. Let me count the ways...1,2,3,4,5,6,7,...this could go on and on...Base Runner IPA (6.3% ABV -- reviewed 14 December 2021)

Ballast Point Brewing Company, San Diego, California:

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• I've loved all the versions of Sculpin' IPAs that I've had at the Ballast Point location in Long Beach, so even though I'm drinking this up in Big Bear as opposed to Long Beach, and in a can, my adopted brother Kim and I bought this in honour of my old friend and former Hawaii resident Betsy, with whom I had just stayed in Long Beach. Of course this is good. It's hazy with Brux Trois yeast and hints of guava, which is a nice touch in a beer. Yes, it's very drinkable and thoroughly enjoyable.Aloha Sculpin' Hazy IPA (7.0% ABV -- reviewed 25 July 2023)

George Bateman & Son, Wainfleet, Lincolnshire:

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• Sparkly orange. That's all I can think of to say about this beer. The label describes it as "biscuity malt, orange fruit, and grassy hops." It says it goes well with salad and with cold meat. I imagine a tossed green salad with rocket, perhaps, although I don't like rocket in salad, so this is purely from an intellectual point of view. And since I don't eat meat, drinkers of the carnivorous nature can make their own decision. I would call this an easy drinking orange beer. And that's it...ring the massive downpour of rain I had just managed to avoid on my way home from work, the dryness was welcome.Summer Swallow (4.2% ABV -- reviewed 22 December 2013)

Beachwood Brewing Company, Long Beach, Californias:

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• This is a nice IPA that we had while having lunch at Open Sesame in Belmont Shore, Long Beach, with my friends Alex and Rae. We were trying to catch up and converse next to a large noisy family group. The beer accompanied our mezze appetisers well.LBC IPA (7.1% ABV -- reviewed 25 July 2023)

Beatnikz Republic Brewing Company, Manchester:

• This is a double IPA with ESB yeast, Ekuanot and Mosaic cryo hops, and it’s gold in colour but tastes much darker. Good god, it’s very intense. I feel that it’s bit too adventurous for my tender soul the early May night that I drank it, worried sick about my mother in California who was not well, after searching for green walks through the woods to calm my trembling soul. This beer needs fortitude to drink.Call to Adventure (8.2% ABV -- a collaboration with Abbeydale Brewing Company, Sheffield, South Yorkshire -- reviewed 6 June 2020)
• This was a quickly-chilled can for a rare after-work-at-home pint instead of a pint sitting in a pub garden taking advantage of both the loosened Covid restrictions and the warmer days. Today is a warm and balmy day, nowt to do at work, and this hazy brew is feisty and zowie, with an aromatic character. It's like walking into an exotic garden with waterfalls and pungent tropical plants. It wakes me up.Ekuanot Silhouette (6.4% ABV -- reviewed 20 July 2021)
• Brewed with Mosaic and Ekuanot hops as well as oats, this is again a very smooth beer. It has a hops taste but no zing or wop or zat or doo-dah. It’s more like a siesta than a fiesta, but hey, it’s pleasant enough. I mean, who doesn’t like to lounge in a hammock under a palm tree?Tropic Fiesta (4.0%% ABV -- reviewed 20 July 2021)

Beavertown Brewery, Tottenham Hale, Greater London:

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• I believe this is the second blood orange IPA I’ve had, and I think I really like these. I was going to have this with our once-again-weekly Saturday Zoom quiz, but I popped the can open early to celebrate the announcement that the 46th President of the United States had just been officially declared to be Joe Biden, with my country’s first female and non-white Vice President. What a great feeling, although a certain party has definitely thrown a pall over the normal feeling of elation. Okay, no more about politics, as most of you know exactly what I’m talking about. This is about beer, and this is a very nice beer. And I can get it at my local Sainsburys, which makes it extremely convenient during this second lockdown. All good!Bloody 'Ell Blood Orange IPA (5.5% ABV -- reviewed 23 November 2020)
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• I found this as a 4-pack of 330m cans, about the only microbrew left on the shelf at Sainsburys. The little cans have a very atomic colour scheme: orange, blue, and yellow. Super-hopped with Columbus, Bravo Mosaic, Amarillo, Citra, and Calypso, this beer is finally dry hopped as well. Yow! The aroma hit my nose before I had the chance to react. “Tropical mango and passion-fruit”, the can describes. The malts used are are extra pale, English premium, camaralt, and caragold. Andrew had one of these as well, and now we want more beer! The washing machine has died in the second week of the Covid-19 lockdown. We can’t wash our clothes, so we need something! (Yes, I know, I’m YELLING! I APOLOGISE!!)Gamma Ray American Pale Ale (5.4% ABV -- reviewed 4 May 2020)
• Brewed with Columbus CO2 Extract, Citra, Mosaic, and Equanot hops as well as Extra Pale, Wheat, Flaked Oats, Acidulated Malt, Golden Naked Oats, and Torrefied Oats, this beer is one of a series of 10 Lupuloid brews from Beavertown. The flavour suggests a tropical coolness, like a surprising breeze through a rainforest, and the nice refreshing aspects of a hop-filled brew. And it’s strong enough to make one loopy if one drinks too many cans.Lupuloid IPA (6.7% ABV -- reviewed 4 May 2020)
• Coming in a nice 440ml can, as opposed to Beavertown’s usual smaller 330ml cans, this is brewed with Simcoe, Mosaic, Loral, and Idaho 7 hops. The day was pleasant enough turning a bit drizzly, but this is a nice hazy sky of a brew -- a stronger sibling to Neck Oil, which I have been drinking at my local pub. Will this supermoon ease my cracking neck? Will it calm my intense energy just a bit? It’s a nice brew, hoppy yet not complicated.Supermoon Hazy (6.% ABV -- reviewed 30 April 2023)

Belhaven Brewery, Belhaven, Lothian, Scotland:

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• This is another craft beer that comes in a can, which appears to be the trend with grapefruit brews. It's not overly grapefruity, but just zingy with a grapefruit top. It's exciting after a very dull day at work.Twisted Grapefruit IPA (5.3% ABV -- reviewed 4 September 2017)
• One evening, after trekking home uphill in snowy weather, I had yet another beer in a can. This time it was an old friend. And it was a delightfully hoppy tonic after my snowy trek.Twisted Thistle IPA (5.6% ABV -- reviewed 22 April 2018)

Big Hugs Brewery, London:

• Brewed with Citra and wheat, and quite cloudy, this can was given to me by my friend Mike who received it as a birthday gift. It’s...naah...I’m not impressed. Andrew thinks it tastes medicinal, and I just find it a huge disappointment. In fact, I actually poured it down the sink because I really felt I needed a proper IPA with a hops kick. Sorry, Big Hugs. I mean, I do like the fact that you call yourself a “hobo brewery”, and I would try a pint of your beer if I ever run into it. But this just isn’t for me.White IPA (5.2% ABV -- reviewed 27 August 2020)

Bini Brew Co, Ilkley, West Yorkshire:

• A collaboration with Bini Brew Co of Ilkley, West Yorkshire, this is brewed with oats and wheat, dry hopped with Eclipse, and there's a very appealing graphic of a cabbit on the can. Aha! I can taste those furry rabbit ears! I'm not sure why they're calling this a session beer at 5.2%. Oh well, whatever. A cabbit is, of course, a hybrid of a cat and rabbit, and supposedly it only exists in Japanese anime and manga. So what would a cabbit eat? Carroturbot? Crabgrass? Mackerelettuce? Anyway, this is a nice hoppy, furry brew, and it's very hazy. I suppose I'm getting used to anything I pour out of a can being hazy. But I do think the cat half of the hybrid would have enjoyed some finings, whereas the rabbit half can more easily hide in the vegan haze. I drank this can on the first warm and sunny day for weeks, but I spent most of the day at work in a cold and windowless room, so I missed most of the pleasure. But there's more of the same predicted for tomorrow, so I'm in a good mood.Cabbit Session IPA (5.2% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Tartarus Beers, Leeds, West Yorkshire -- reviewed 4 September 2023)

Black Iris Brewery, New Basford, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire:

• Brewed with Mosaic and Simcoe hops, and contained within a simple white and black can, this is hoppy and refreshing. There’s not much more I can say.Endless Summer (4.5% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
• he can of this southern-hemisphere beer features a nice Hokkaido-style wave visible in the white line graphic which stands out on the black can. The beer inside suggests some nice Kiwi hops. So it’s sort of like a holiday away from all of this.Nigaru Nui New Zealand IPA (6.0% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)

Black Sheep Brewery, Masham, North Yorkshire:

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• "The culmination of five generations of brewing expertise," it says on the label. This is another nicely bitter bitter, just the way I like 'em. There's a nice branded-paper-style graphic of a black sheep on the label -- although it's more of a brown colour. But "Brown Sheep" doesn't have the same ring to it as "Black Sheep". Has anybody had an uncle, aunt, or cousin who was considered the brown sheep of the family? I don't think so...anyway, it's a nice brown beer with a satisfyingly black bitterness.Black Sheep Ale (3.8% ABV -- reviewed 18 July 2001)
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• This is what it says on the bottle: "Riggwelter: from the Old Norse; rygg-back & velte -- to overturn. When a sheep is on its back and cannot get up without help, local dales dialect says it's rigged or riggwelted." Sheep or no sheep, this beer has a frumpy taste. There's a distinctly roasty hops flavor, but isn't it malt that's supposed to be roasty? The flavor takes the shape of a donut with a vacancy in the middle. It tastes like a roasty motel with nice panelling in the rooms but lousy water pressure. Not to mention it's way too carbonated.Riggwelter Strong Yorkshire Ale (5.7% ABV -- reviewed April 1999)

Bradfield Brewery, High Bradfield, South Yorkshire:

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• All I can say about this beer is Yum! And I say that Yum! in the same way as I might say it drinking Farmers Blonde. This beer slides down sooooo easily on a snowy night which is a bit scary for 5% beer. But the fear is reduced by that 5-percent-glad-I-don't-have-to-walk-home-from-the-pub-in-the-icy-slippery-slush feel.Farmers Gold (5.0% ABV -- reviewed 31 May 2009)

Brakspear Brewing, Henley on Thames, Oxfordshire:

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• Another of my birthday bottles of beer, this is an organic brew with a nice copper colour and a coppery taste. It brought to mind some sort of incense-like fruit, and I finally settled on bitter tangerine. Oddly enough the bottle has some Finnish writing on it. I don't really know why...Oxford Gold (4.6% ABV -- reviewed 30 March 2013)

Brampton Brewery, Chesterfield, Derbyshire:

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• A strong bottled version of Brampton's Golden Bud, this packs that wonderful Brampton OOMPH! taste that is a great experience after weeks of snow and a long day at work. It offers a chewy bitter and an amber-tinged nuttiness with a gorgeous background aura. This beer brings lively fire-warmed pub chat directly into the home.Golden Special Bud (5.8% ABV -- reviewed 24 January 2010)

Brass Castle Brewing Company, Malton, North Yorkshire:

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• Described as a “robust” porter with a touch of vanilla, this was very drinkable, and even Andrew agreed with me, although both of us would only want to drink one pint and no more. So it wasn’t like this kitty was pissing on someone’s pillow or importing mangled sewer rats through the catflap, or even chewing up one’s important documents (because, after all, it would be the bad puppy who would do that, not the bad kitty). Perhaps the analogy is more of a robust black cat that hisses and scratches. But I feel confident that this kitty would have a really good reason to do so. I mean, I know cats, Reader! Anyway, as the weather had continued to be quite frigid, this was a good warmer, just like a cat purring away on my lap.Bad Kitty (5.5% ABV -- reviewed 6 February 2023)

Brewdog, Ellon, Aberdeenshire, Scotland:

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• Wulla wulla wulla...I'm all shook up! Elvis has left the can, in the form of a grapefruit infused IPA. It wasn't as good as the previous grapefruit-infused brews I've had (Magic Rock's High Wire and Ballast Point's Grapefruit Sculpin' IPA). Maybe it's the fact that Elvis also contains orange and peach along with the grapefruit, making it more like a fruit punch. Perhaps The King would have enjoyed it, especially with a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich, but I prefer my grapefruit pure. I mean, if I could risk eating grapefruits without getting a stomach ache, I wouldn’t want to dilute the lovely flavour with slices of sweet peach. My taste buds are shakin' like a leaf on a peach tree...Elvis Juice (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 23 July 2017)
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• This West Coast IPA features Ahtanum, Citra, and Simcoe hops, as well as Munich, Pale, and Wheat malts. With characters of mango, citrus, lychee, pint, and toasted malt promised on the can, this is pretty damn good. I sipped it at the end of yet another survived day, where nothing bad happened and there were no horrible depression dips -- in other words, just the usual, ordinary, toleration of this dystopian reality and devolution of the normally sociable human race. So this beer was quite a pleasant reward. I completely understand the connotation of the name.Futureproof (6.2% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Modern Times Beer, San Diego, California -- reviewed 27 August 2020)
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• My friend Mike thought I would like this New England IPA, and he's right: I do. The label says “Embrace the Opaque” on the label. The beer is super-pale in colour, and of course hazy, looking a bit like pear juice. But it’s definitely my favourite BrewDog beer at this point.Hazy Jane (5.0% ABV -- reviewed 6 June 2020)
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• On the can is the brewery’s declaration, “United we stand for better beer, fiercely defiant and independent to the bitter end.” I have to say that this is a verrrrrrrrry bitter brew. In fact, it’s so bitter that what’s not bitter in it tastes sweet in comparison. And I know it’s not. This jarring hammer has torn up my pavements and awakened me from the threat of another pandemic-caused depressive episode. Thanks, Jack! I do love special select Jacks (including my favourite cat in my second home in California). It’s bitter, like the bitter world we’re living in right now. It makes my eyes squeeze closed, it’s so bitter. Yes!Jackhammer Ruthless IPA (7.2% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
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• My god, what a powerful brew! I drank it really slowly, trying not to think about who it could possibly have been named for. The label gives the following description: "Say hello to the President elect of Double IPAS. An all-American gung-ho of a beer. The First Amendment in full on, full tilt flavour. This is a beer Super Power flexing its hoppy muscles. Immerse yourself in the star spangled banner of big fruit. A Cadillac of chewy toffee malt rolls down the interstate and accelerates hard into relentless bitterness, with sniper bursts of apricot, mango and pine. This is a Defcon I of IPAs. An all-out bedrock patriot, hell-bent on global domination. Vote with your senses. Vote Mr President." Hmm...it was an interesting experience, but think I'd prefer to stick with more Democratic brews...Mr President (9.2% ABV -- reviewed 4 September 2017)
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• Oddly the 440ml can says nothing about what this beer is like. It did have a nice smell, though. But once I started to drink it I found it quite hoppy but with not that much to write about. Descriptions online have described it as tropical fruit with a heavy dose of lime, which is probably the most accurate. I did find out it’s brewed with oats and wheat, bringing it a distinctly Scottish character. It’s a bit too Scottish for my taste. But as I poured the last bit, there was still a very nice aroma emanating from it.O-G Hazy New England IPA (7.2% ABV -- reviewed 4 May 2020)
• After two months I finally tried a couple of my birthday bottles of beer. This IPA was described on bottle as "Post Modern Classic Pale Ale", with no preservatives or additives. My first sip made me say, "Mmm! Yes! Of course! It's modern hops! Yes! I like! I like! Zowie! God Save the Queen! Anarchy In The UK! Police and Thieves in the Streets! My old band!" Andrew agreed. Nice zappy hops in a bottle.Punk IPA (5.6% ABV -- reviewed 30 March 2013)

Brew By Numbers, London:

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• Brewed with Strata and modern American Talus hops, this hazy beer’s flavours are described as “stone fruit, tangerine, and lemon rind with dankness, with oats balancing the profile.” And once again, it’s another fine brew, with that typical wow-inspired American hop character. And what quality hops these are as well, with that almost icy/cryo character. This turned out to be a great lift for another fuck-it-s-another-day-in-Dysphoria Sunday.BB No. 5 India Pale Ale (6.2% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)

Brew Foundation:

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• An American ale brewed with Comet, Idaho 7, and Azzaca hops, this is yet another vegan and gluten free beer. The description on the bottle suggests tropical, mango, and citrus, but I'm getting more than just fruit. This delivers satisfying hops yomp! in a dark golden ale with an interesting tropical resin flavour. In fact, I can smell resin, or more properly, rosin. Where’s my violin bow? I’m hearing Stephane Grapelli under the palm trees, and I can see the magnolia sunset. What a pleasant multisensual beer!C.I.A. (6.0% ABV -- reviewed 23 November 2020)
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• For a change from the cans I bought a bottle of beer. Brewed with Jester, Galena, and Amarillo hops, those lovely hops are dancing in a fruity ambience with plenty of citrus bite. This is a very nice beer -- laughing along with me, as my last day of work until next year has finished and I’ve got fresh clean sheets on the bed. Life is (relatively) good right now, considering Covid-19 and Brexit and everything else. So I shall enjoy these few moments while they last, with a good book and a nice brew. Tomorrow we shall return to a Covid Xmas, and all the mosquito hordes that buzz...Laughing Water Hoppy Pale (4.3% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
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• This double dry-hopped beer, in a maddeningly appealing pale orange can with thin red details, is brewed with Pekko and Citra hops, extra pale and wheat malts, and Labrew New England yeast, which is described as lending a dank and fruity character. The tasting notes on the can are simply “hazy, pineapple, mango”. I was surprised at my first sip: there is a lot going on for such a low-ABV beer. It’s full of tropical dankness in a very pale hoppy brew, and I really like it, even though the name makes me think regrettably of my friends who have become Pokemon-Go zombies, distracted from human interaction by the cute little animated creatures hiding all around them in their virtual realities. But the name also reminds me of the peekaboo-blue sky we experienced for a couple of hours this afternoon, so refreshingly exciting after weeks of the same grey monotony. Regardless, this is another beer that I definitely want to experience again.Pekkochu DDH Pale (3.9% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
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• Day 2 of the 2020 Covid-19 Lockdon featured a bottle of this brew which features Nelson Sauvin hops and the bottle promises gooseberry and grapefruit. Wow! This is just a good classic hoppy bitter brew. There’s just enough malt to make it really well balanced for a golden ale. It was a just reward after my afternoon two-mile walk through the Apocalypse of Man and the Rebirth of Nature.Wheat Your Heart Out White IPA (6.0% ABV -- reviewed 29 March 2020)

Brew York, York, North Yorkshire:

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• This is another craft beer that comes in a can, which appears to be the trend with grapefruit brews. It's not overly grapefruity, but just zingy with a grapefruit top. It's exciting after a very dull day at work.American Pale Ale (5.0% ABV -- reviewed 22 April 2018)
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• This is a black IPA brewed with Cascade, Centennial, Columbia, and Chinook hops. And it’s very, very black indeed. I drank this during a snowy Sunday Zoom session with our friend Mike. It was surprisingly rich for the usual black IPAs I’ve had. But as it kept on snowing and snowing, I suppose the black was a good contrast to all that white. And that intense black made me think of the scientists at MIT who, in September 2019, discovered the "blackest black" material ever discovered, made using carbon nanotubes. It was the same material that was used to make Vantablack, once considered the world's darkest material and able to absorb 99.965% of visible light. Now, that’s pretty darn black, if you ask me.Black Eagle (5.8% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
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• This is a Juicy Bonus Fruited IPA with Cascade, Citra, CTZ, and Mosaic hops. But don't stop there! It also has pineapple, passion fruit, and mango added to the blend. How…weird it is. It's rather sweet, and it tastes like, um...fruit punch with a good dose of hops added. What a strange beer. I feel as if I'm having a beer cocktail.Bruce Forsythe (5.0% ABV -- reviewed 25 July 2023)
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• This is another super hoppy bitter combination. It’s called, simply, a “classic American pale”. The hops include T90 pellets of CT2, as well as both T-90 and Cryo versions of Citra, Mosaic, and Simcoe, and the malts are Extra Pale and Vienna. The name of this beer refers to the hopes that we soon graduate from the Covid-19 tiers. Wah-hah! There’s that cryo character I’ve fallen in love with in these strange otherworldly times.Holding Back The Tiers (5.2% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
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• Two nights later, on a rainy Saturday evening, I had this other intriguing can I’d bought at the same time. This is an American Pale Ale with lupulin which is the golden part of the hop that gives beer its bitterness, aroma, and flavour. On the can this beer is described as “the hippest cat in the pride, a juicy golden pale ale heavily hopped for roaring citrus notes with a totally paw-some resinous pine finish." The hops used are CTZ (T90 and Cryol), Cascade (T90 and Cryol), and Mosaic (T90 and Cryol, Citra Cryol). Wow, this is another fine beer! It’s like walking through a pine forest while chewing on a lime peel. It clears my sinuses, It zooms my endorphin level right up. It’s like a jacuzzi of a beer experience.Lupu Lion (5.0% ABV -- reviewed 14 December 2021)
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• This beer is the second collaboration with Thornbridge. The first collaboration led to the great Friday night that named this beer. A West Coast IPA with Centennial, Chinook, Simcoe, Columbus, and Equanot hops, this is apparently recommended with cedar planked salmon, which I’ll go for any day. The flavour is grapefruit and stone fruit, and it's perfect for another “killer hot” day (nah, it’s just like a typical Southern California summer day.) Yes, it's a very nice, drinkable hoppy brew, although I don’t think I’d drink it out at a barbecue or picnic in this heat with that ABV.Some Friday That (7.0% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Thornbridge Brewing Company, Bakewell, Derbyshire -- reviewed 20 August 2022)
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• This IPA is a collaboration with street food partner Yuzu in celebration of the opening of Brew York's first bar in Leeds, which serves Japanese food. The list of ingredients is interesting: Citra (T90 and Cryo), Sabro (T90), and Loral (T90) hops; Extra Pale, Malted Oats, Malted Wheat, and Flaked Oats malts, as well as Honey Malt and Acid Malt; and it also contains yuzu, which is a hybrid of a mandarin orange and an ichang papeda -- or, to put it another way, basically a hybrid lime, lemon, and grapefruit. The can is decorated with Japanese food graphics interspersed with chopsticks. The beer inside is a gentle IPA with a wonderfully unique citrus character. And yeah, I can see this going great with sushi. The Things Yuzu To Me (5.6% ABV -- reviewed 20 July 2021)
• This is an IPA with Chinook, Idaho 7, and Mosaic hops that was brewed in collaboration with Buxton Brewery in Derbyshire. The exact hops used are Chinook (T90 and Cryo), Ekuanot (T90), Idaho 7 (T90 and Cryo), and Mosaic (T90 and Cryo). And oh my, you can immediately taste and smell the Cryo. As I popped open the can, it blasted into my nose like an icy ozone gust. Yum, I love Cryo hops! The can itself features a couple of sheep, which is always good as far as I'm concerned.Through The Aire Gap (6.2% ABV -- reviewed 3 October 2022)
• Whoa! When I popped open this can, a massively pure head gushed out. Was it shaken? Or stirred? The can seemed extremely chilled, more so than most beers I’ve enjoyed in my home. Perhaps it was because the can is aluminium silver with Nordic-style abstract graphics, and it’s probably freezing a lot in Norway. But coconut isn’t really very Nordic. Ah well, the taste is what’s important. And it’s very interesting. Surprisingly the coconut goes very well with the hoppiness, probably because it’s not a sweet coconut, more like what one gets from coconut juice as opposed to coconut milk. The uniquely coconut afterflash across my tongue makes me smile.Valkri Kveik Coconut NEIPA (4.9% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Brewboard of Harston, Cambridgeshire -- reviewed 20 July 2021)

Brewboard, Harston, Cambridgeshire:

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• Whoa! When I popped open this can, a massively pure head gushed out. Was it shaken? Or stirred? The can seemed extremely chilled, more so than most beers I’ve enjoyed in my home. Perhaps it was because the can is aluminium silver with Nordic-style abstract graphics, and it’s probably freezing a lot in Norway. But coconut isn’t really very Nordic. Ah well, the taste is what’s important. And it’s very interesting. Surprisingly the coconut goes very well with the hoppiness, probably because it’s not a sweet coconut, more like what one gets from coconut juice as opposed to coconut milk. The uniquely coconut afterflash across my tongue makes me smile.Valkri Kveik Coconut NEIPA (4.9% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Brew York of York -- reviewed 20 July 2021)

Brewery of St Mars of the Desert, Sheffield, South Yorkshire:

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• Now, this tastes just like an American superhoppy IPA! Billed as a New England IPA with Galaxy hops, it’s definitely American, from that first aroma that blasts into your nostrils through that first hoppy sip. This isn’t surprising, seeing as how 50% of the brewery ownership is American, and the other 50% is married to the first and has both resided and brewed beer in New England. I love Galaxy hops anyway, and this is a wonderful American and intensely Galactical experience. Thank you, guys, for cheering me up on this depressing few days of maximum stress. This beer makes me happy, especially because as an American I’m not allowed to travel to the US this year. Unless I’m willing to wear a sweat-and-miasma-producing mask continually for at least 14 hours, of course, and then quarantine myself for 2 weeks over there and then for another 2 weeks over here, while holding down my job. No, I’m sorry, no way, I will simply have to wait, however long it’s going to take. In the meantime I will have to settle for seeking out distinctly American beers like this one. So once again, Thank ya Jayzus! Or I should say Thank Ya, Saint Mars! I have been to the Desert and I have seen the Oasis! (No, not the band...)Floribunda (6.0% ABV -- reviewed 22 April 2018)
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• This beer is brewed with Mosaic and Waimea hops and features a nice simple line drawing, black ink on white, on the can. The sipping of this beer turned out to be a multitasking accompaniment, as I had failed to reach my Unkletom in Sacramento on Messenger, which he had just installed and learned how to use, and I was waiting to connect to a Zoom meeting with my unofficial brother in Long Beach, while I was reading Saul Bellow’s novel Humboldt’s Gold as I waited for all of the connections. When I finally started concentrating on the Clamp, I found it a bit hazily fuzzy on the tongue and not quite grabbing me as much as I was hoping something named after a biting implement would imply.Clamp New England IPA (5.4% ABV -- reviewed 23 November 2020)

Brixton Brewery, Brixton, Greater London:

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• Brewed with New World hops, this is a fairly mild IPA, so it’s not exactly a hopmonster. But it’s quite drinkable and somewhat fruity. On the can it says “Laid back”, and yes, it’s definitely laid back. There is no danger of this beer causing a panic attack.Low Voltage IPA (4.3% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)

Brooklyn Brewery, Brooklyn, New York:

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• I decided to grab a can off the supermarket shelf because I was attracted to the can, with its Yankees baseball-style “B” prominent. It looks like a brewery that’s been around awhile, but don’t let that make you start yawning, because this is pretty damn good. It’s just a really good, satisfying, hoppy pale ale that’s quite yummy, especially as I chilled it in the fridge because of the warm end-of-May day. Now I just have to remember where I saw this. (Sainsbury’s? Co-op? Asda? Tesco?)Defender IPA (5.5% ABV -- reviewed 6 June 2020)
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• This was a nice follower to the black IPA I started the evening’s Zoom session with. There is a good distinctive hops in this beer which is quite pleasing, as well as some orange peel. It’s light with a touch of orange, as the name suggests. The brewery’s website recommends it with Mexican food and grilled shrimp, which sounds like a great idea. When do we eat?Naranjito (4.5% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)

Burning Sky Brewery, Firle, East Sussex:

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• This is a classic style IPA from the South Downs, although the hops used are Simcoe, Columbus, and Amarillo, which aren’t exactly classic Kent hops. Burnt orange in colour, this is a memory trigger of a beer. And I’m not talking about my beer explorations back when I lived in Kent; this particular hops character I recall from the first great Pacific Northwest hoppy IPAs I tasted, with that original Oomph! character. And this was before the distinctly different Oomph! I’ve experienced from the newer hops like Galaxy, El Dorado, and Vic Secret. Yum, I say, simply yum! This IPA has the original wonderful hoppy character that I’d forgotten all about. It’s good to take the occasional stroll down Original Oomph! Memory Lane. Devil's Rest IPA (7.0% ABV -- reviewed 20 July 2021)

Burnt Mill Brewing Company, Ipswich, Suffolk:

• This West Coast IPA is a collaboration with Abbeydale Brewing of Sheffield, South Yorkshire. A riffle is a reach of stream where shallow fast-moving water is broken by rocks and boulders. Riffles are common in both Derbyshire and Suffolk, so that inspired the name. With my first sip I got a definite Wow! Strong! Bitter! I was swung into a boulder in a torrential rainstorm, which I actually had experienced earlier when I got off the bus to walk the rest of the way to work, and I ended up completely drenched. In fact my clothes were still wet while I was enjoying this beer. Apparently the city of Sheffield has decided that a walking-cycling City Centre is great for everyone, even people who can’t walk, and it completely disregards the typical Sheffield weather. So of course the bus routes make no sense at all for people actually needed to get from Point A to Point B. Oh well, it matches the UK politics of the era...Riffle (4.3% ABV -- reviewed 15 November 2022)

Buxton Brewery, Buxton, Derbyshire:

• Brewed with Citra from the US and Olicana from the UK, this imparted a gorgeous perfume when I opened the can. What a fascinatingly hoppy IPA, with yet another new hops for me. It tasted flowery. Olicna is described as having the flavours and aromas of grapefruit, mango, and passion fruit, but I’d love to wear it as perfume, or burn it as incense. It’s a wonderful smell and taste on the wet, soaking day.50Fifty IPA (5.5% ABV -- reviewed 20 December 2022)
• This is an IPA with Chinook, Idaho 7, and Mosaic hops that was brewed in collaboration with Brew York in North Yorkshire. The exact hops used are Chinook (T90 and Cryo), Ekuanot (T90), Idaho 7 (T90 and Cryo), and Mosaic (T90 and Cryo). And oh my, you can immediately taste and smell the Cryo. As I popped open the can, it blasted into my nose like an icy ozone gust. Yum, I love Cryo hops! The can itself features a couple of sheep, which is always good as far as I'm concerned.Through The Aire Gap (6.2% ABV -- reviewed 3 October 2022)

Canopy Beer Company, London:

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• The can announces "Brewers of Craft Beer and Humble Glories, Juicy, Tropical, Crushable, Eccentric". Brewed with Citra and Cascade hops, this is very bitter but quite tropical, I must say, with a distinct guava or loquat cromph. The day was yet another cloudy day threatening rain, as it looked like the entire Yorkshire summer was going to turn out, and my shoes were still drying out from getting caught in a massive long-lasting downpour the previous day in the woods with absolutely nowhere to go for shelter. (Yes, this is what typical Sheffield July days are now, I guess. How I dream of being able to visit California as I do every September, but it’s obviously not happening this year.) Along with all the promises, the can is decorated with a colourful creature with a dinosaur tail and legs, beaver arms, and an elephant head. Yep, I think that’s a very appropriate description of this beer.Brockell IPA (5.6% ABV -- reviewed 27 August 2020)

Castle Rock Brewery, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire:

• This collaboration features UK grown Harlequin and Cascade hops, and it's dry hopped with Galaxy and Loral Cryo. So the hops are from all over the place, creating a cosmopolitan, interesting, and totally cool beer. In fact, it's too cool for school, as we used to say. According to Homer's Iliad, Menelaus was a central figure in the Trojan War who led the Spartan contingent of the Greek armyBut apparently Menelaus is also the name of one of the lions that flank the steps of the Council House in Nottingham, so that's where this beer's name comes from.Menelaus New School IPA (5.5% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Castle Rock Brewing in Nottingham -- reviewed 25 July 2023)

Cervejaria Invicta, Ribeiro Preto, Sao Paolo, Brazil:

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• This beer is a collaboration with Triple Point Brewery, Sheffield, South Yorkshire. Brewed with Cryo Amarillo, Cryo Citra, Cryo El Dorado, and Cryo Sabro hops, it comes in a gorgeous green, gold, and rusty red can. So what’s not to like? When I popped open the can, the aroma scented the entire room. It was very perfumey, with chewy hops. And wow! It really cheered me up.Invicta Cryo-Hopped NEIPA (5.0% ABV -- reviewed 15 November 2022)

Chapel Down Group, Tenterden, Kent:

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• Recently on a night alone I tried this beer, one of my birthday bottles. It's described as "crystal, chocolate, black, and amber malts from floor malted Sussex barley, with Admiral and Goldings Late hops and matured with oak." It's a nice rich but smooth porter for a very odd day which started with heavy sudden snow instantly melting, followed by painful sleet in the face from the Arctic winds. This brew is like a little mini-fire with an imaginary big grey cat sitting on my lap. It's comfort beer!Curious Porter (5.0% ABV -- reviewed 21 February 2013)

Chapel-en-le-Frith Craft Brewing Company, Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire:

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• Described on the label as a light ale in a whole world of hoppiness, this brew comes in a can covered with graphics of bunnies and hops buds, just in case you thought it might not be hoppy. It was one of the bottles I bought from the Eyam Brewing Company’s shop in the plague village of Eyam. It’s copper pale and well balanced with a definite citrus bitterness, so it was an appropriate beer to be drinking after a particularly exhausting day at work, at home huddling in our currently crowded lounge as the bedrooms upstairs were being painted. I wish that I could say that it made me feel like hopping and scampering, as that’s my usual physical inclination, but I was just too tired and there definitely wasn’t enough room.Hoppy As Funk (5.8% ABV -- reviewed 24 March 2019)

Cigar City Brewing, Tampa, Florida:

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• I finally opened this Lockdown-vintage can. Brewed with Strata and Idaho 7 hops, this beer is still hoppily drinkable three years later, and it’s quite hoppily satisfying as well. The flavours of mango and tangerine are suggested on the can, and also the suggestion of cigar box labels--not cigars, which I can appreciate as a beer-tasting term, but the labels. Okay...Fancy Papers Hazy IPA (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 12 February 2024)

  Cloudwater Brewing Company, Manchester, Greater Manchester:

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  • This DDH IPA is hopped with Citra and Mosaic. The can says the following: “Wave after wave of succulent tropical and stone fruit flavours roll across a soft, smooth bed, comnplemented by a characteristic dankness”... Yep, I’ll try to ignore the typo “comnplemented”, because this is exactly the promise that the combination of Citra and Mosaic brings to me. And wow, yes! The promise is not broken, and the boat is seaworthy. I drank this on Thanksgiving just before a short Cousins Zoom.I Have Become the Boat (7.0% ABV -- reviewed 30 December 2023)

  Crafty Dan Microbrewery, Blackburn, Lancashire:

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  • This beer is amber in colour and very full in flavour. The label promises an "intense hit of hops", which is spot-on, actually, the hops being an array Centennial, Citra, Amarillo, Apollo, Chinook, and Kohatu. The beer was brewed in honour of the 13 original states by Crafty Dan, which is part of the Thwaites Brewery. This was a great tonic after an exhausting work day.13 Guns IPA (5.5% ABV -- reviewed 8 June 2017)

  Cropton Brewery, Pickering, North Yorkshire:

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  • This strong brew is smooth yet full-bodied and like velour on the tongue. It's not "goaty" at all, at least in classic beer-tasting terms. The goat on the label is wearing spectacles, so he's obviously a more distinguished goat, the type that could relate charming stories in a fine Yorkshire accent about dining on shoelaces. Ah yes, the tales of his youth when he clambered about in the Dales! "Ay, tha knows, it were in t'winter of '48. Ol' Billy, he were a right tough goat!"Old Goat (8.0% ABV -- reviewed 24 January 2010)

  Crosspool Ale Makers Society, Sheffield, South Yorkshire:

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  • When I saw the photo on the can of three famous rappers of the Sheffield neighbourhood of Crosspool, obviously I had to buy it. Yo, this beer is dark amber, so it’s a beer of colour. And it’s brewed with Chinook, Centennial, and Cascade hops, know what I’m sayin’? This is sick, man.Straight Outta Crosspool West Coast IP (5.6% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)

  Crown & Hops Brewing Company, Inglewood, California:

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  • When I was having lunch at the Hammer Collection in Los Angeles last May, I was drinking a can of Mayberry IPA, and my friend Eileen had tried a can of this. With Nobel hops, this German pilsner was brewed to raise awareness of racial equality and economic growth across the spectrum, and 100% of the proceeds donated to organisations driving sustainable change to accomplish racial equality. But the hops flavour was so mild that Eileen preferred my IPA, so we shared that.8 Trill Pils (5.0% ABV -- reviewed 25 July 2023)

  Crown & Kettle Brewpub, Manchester:

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  • This beer is a collaboration with Triple Point Brewing in Sheffield. It's brewed with El Dorado, Cryo Ekuanot, and Wai-Iti hops, and the proceeds from the sales of this beer go to the ICRC which supports Ukrainian civilians, so that’s a great cause for drinking a beer. As I warmed up and my sinuses clogged up again in the smoky stuffiness of our house, at least I could feel good about drinking this. It was very nice, with definitely a lime tinge in a wonderful guava-pineapple bouquet.An Exercise In Friendship (6.2% ABV -- reviewed 15 November))

  Devils Backbone Brewing Company, Lexington, Virginia:

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  • The can announces the “mountains of Virginia, stags and hoppy citrusy IPAs”. The mountains mentioned are the Blue Ridge Mountains, although it says this particular bottle was bottled in the UK. I found in this brew a very fruity character in an orange sort of way, with plenty of bitter hops. Not surprising, as the hops used are Admiral, Goldings, Cascade, Centennial, and Columbus, to which orange, marmalade, and biscuit have been added. The beer, which comes in a bottle instead of a can, is surprisingly deep golden.American IPA (5.2% ABV -- reviewed 27 August 2020)

  Deep Creek Brewing Company, Silverdale, Auckland, New Zealand:

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  • The brewery has called this their "summer Haiku beer". On the can is a haiku that reads the following: "The Haiku Project / Eastern Philosophy meets / East Coast USA. // Misty Miyagi / Zen master, summer Sensai / a strong gentle brew. // Tropical flavours / Mango, passion fruit, citrus / hiding in the haze." I'm quite intrigued by the Haiku Project, as I was a major contributor to the Lost Years Haiku Project, a collection of brand-placement verse for email subscribers which was originated by my brilliant performing artist friend Robert way back before Facebook and WhatsApp and everybody had their own website. But back to the beer: this is really cool. It’s a nice hoppy tropical beer, and it’s also my second Kiwi can of beer. And it’s in such a colourful can as well. The name is probably from Mr Miyagi, who was the coach in The Karate Kid.Misty Miyagi Hazy IPA (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)

  Direct Beers, Ashbourne, Derbyshire:

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  • The label on the bottle says that this is brewed by cats who have been rescued from back alleys and fed hops and barley and yeast and plenty of water. It implies that the resulting cat piss has been used in the brewing process, but “no cats were harmed in the production of this beer”. It’s a nice pale and hoppy beer, which reminds me a bit of my friend Mistah Rick’s beer tasting term, catbox. Like “horseblanket” and “sweaty armpits” this is not necessarily a disgusting flavour when used in the context of a hoppy beer.Cat Piss Pale Ale (4.7% ABV -- reviewed 18 May 2019)

  Durham Brewery, Bowburn, County Durham:

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  • Recently Andrew and I shared a bottle of Magic IPA (7.0% ABV, Durham Brewery, Bowburn, County Durham). Just lifting the glass toward my nose I was intoxicated. My first taste was a gorgeous blast of bitter hops stroking my tongue and telling me there, there, calm down! Has it been a stressful day? You're home now, you can relax, and you can sip this 7% ABV and not worry about falling over in the pub. Andrew found it very moving -- moving down his legs with a blast of potential wobble.Magic IPA (7.0% ABV -- reviewed 30 May 2011)

  El Segundo Brewery, El Segundo, California:

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  • This is a West Coast IPA with Mosaic, Cascade, and Chinook hops. I'd call it a New Zealand kind of IPA. I drank this at Lulu, which is the cafe in the Hammer Contemporary, Los Angeles, when my friend Eileen and I were having a light lunch. It was quite hoppy and good, and I even messaged my friend Rick Mayberry in Oregon to let him know I was drinking his beer. I suppose the name is a takeoff on Mayberry RFD, which is not a beer, and I can't really picture Andy Griffith drinking it--but life is full of surprises. There was definitely a bit of dankness going on in this can, but the beer was great with our goat cheese sandwich and crusty bread.Mayberry IPA (7.2% ABV -- reviewed 25 July 2023)

  Emmanueles, Sheffield, South Yorkshire:

  `
  • I was worried about opening this can, as I bought it back during lockdown and noticed that the Best By Date was 11 months earlier. But the can didn’t explode, and it had a good head when I poured it, and it was definitely like a black IPA. Brewed with Cascade, Citra, and a touch of rye, it had a dark bitter roasty flavour to the hoppiness. I thought that a dark November night would be just right for this, and it seemed to be fitting the bill at first. But then I finally realised I really didn’t like it. I’ve got to be fair, seeing as how it was out of date, so that might be why I didn’t like it.Be Rye and Lifted Up Black IPA (6.1% ABV -- reviewed 20 December 2022)

  Evil Twin Brewery, Brooklyn, New York:

  `
  • This complicated IPA comes in a one-pint can, giving one plenty of time to check out the various layers. The first few sips imparted a real sweetness which lasted throughout the entire can, and which I was hoping would ease off a bit. As to the name, Falco, although there’s a stylised Mohawk-streamline-moderne raptor on the can, I can’t help thinking of the Austrian singer from the 1980s who sang “Rock Me Amadeus”. I think I’d prefer more of the sleek-lined falcon hoppiness and less of the malty rock-star hair.Falco IPA (7.0% ABV -- reviewed 20 July 2021)
    `
  • This is a very hazy and hoppy brew, perfect for yet another Zoom call with our friend Mike. I must admit it didn’t taste very evil to me, although it was extremely hazy, so perhaps it was hiding something in the glass. I followed it with a can of Stone IPA which is always good.More Or Less Evil (5.0% ABV -- reviewed 27 August 2020)

  Fair State Brewing Cooperative, Minneapolis, Minnesota:

  `
  • This is a Strata DDH Pale. that was recommended to me by Jay at the Walkley Beer Company, as he thought I’d like it, seeing as how I’d just been wowed by a pint of another Fell brew with Sabro and Talus hops. Looking up the fascinating Strata hops, I learned that it was developed in 2009 in Corvallis, Oregon and has been described as “passion fruit, grapefruit, dried chili, and cannabis”. This beer was light and drinkable, and I could definitely get the dried chilli and cannabis aroma. It wasn’t blatant, mind you--just a little figment of a suggestion, similar to dank. Yes, dank in a pale brew.Less Cowbell (5.5% ABV -- reviewed 15 October 2023)

  Fell Brewery, Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria:

  `
  • Sold in a one-pint can, this beer contains Citra, Simcoe, and Denali hops, wheat, and oats, and is quite tropical. In fact, when I popped open the can it scented the entire room. It’s tropical like an ocean breeze through the pineapple and mango trees. It’s quite gorgeous, actually. I selected this for my pint refreshment as I wait for a Cousins Zoom session to start, featuring one uncle, one brother, one sister-in-law, and cousins and second cousins galore. As most of them are on the Pacific Coast of America, where they’ll be having their second cup of coffee, and the one in Hawaii probably having his first cup, I’m sipping slowly because I don’t want to end up sounding pissed.Pahlay Hazy Pale Ale (5.0% ABV -- reviewed 20 July 2021)

  Figueroa Mountain Brewing Company, Buellton, California:

  `
  • Brewed with Cascade, Columbus, and Simcoe hops, this easy-drinking beer features a floral bouquet, and it comes in a can decorated with pretty California poppies. The Central Coast brewery is named after a mountain which can be seen from Los Olivos, and it's won lots of gold medals recently.Hoppy Poppy IPA (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 25 July 2023)

  Firestone Walker Brewing Company, Paso Robles, California:

  `
  • When I was visiting California, and my unofficial brother Kim and I returned to Bakersfield one night from a short road trip, we stopped at a shop to pick up some beer to take home. Sadly they had no more Lagunitas IPA, and the selection looked pretty grim. A young man told us that this was a good beer if we liked IPA. So having no choice, we picked up a sixpack. And I think both of us have to admit it's really awful. If you don't really like hops, you should enjoy this. But why Firestone Walker has created this bland, slightly malty drek, I'll never understand. When Rick and I were later driving all over the Central Coast, we saw billboards advertising this brew. I guess some people will never have any taste.805 (4.7% -- reviewed 4 July 2022)
    `
  • This beer is brewed with Simcoe, Talus, and Callista hops and then double dry hopped with Mosaic Cryo, Idaho 7, El Dorado, Cashmere, Nelson Sauvin, and Riwaka hops. So no wonder it's so delicious! All those uniquely excellent hops are all thrashing around in there together, without any egos clashing, suggesting mango, passionfruit, and lychee. How do they do it? Besides using a wide array of excellent hops, the cryo hops are pellets made by collecting the concentrated lupulin from whole-leaf hops. And who doesn't love that lupulin?Hopnosis IPA (6.7% -- reviewed 25 July 2023)
    `
  • It was a completely dead and deserted Saturday and I wanted and needed a strong beer, so I decided to try this one. The pretty blue can features a rampant lion facing a rampant bear, with their dukes up. (I’m assuming the lion stands for England and the bear for California.) The hops are listed as Idaho 7, Mosaic, Cashmere, El Dorado, and Simcoe, and the resulting character as Mango, Grapefruit, Tropical Fruit, Pine, and Chicken Wings. Huh? Oh sorry, that must be the food pairing suggestion. As soon as I popped open the can I realised that this is a really lusciously good beer. It is truly yummy! Even Andrew agreed instantly with me as I insisted he taste it. And happily I bought the can just down the road at a very local shop, so I can run back and buy some more. This is really a lovely brew, absolutely lovely. I suppose it’s those characters, the triad of tropical, grapefruit, and pine, that can turn out so perfect, and the melding of such an interesting collection of hops. I can’t say it enough, but this is absolutely lovely. I can’t really detect any chicken, though...Ponderosa West Coast IPA (6.7% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Thornbridge Brewing Company, Bakewell, Derbyshire -- reviewed 27 August 2020)
    `
  • This West Coast IPA is hopped with CTZ, Cascade, and Centennial hops, then dry hopped with Cascade, Centennial, Simcoe, Citra, Amarillo, and Chinook. The malts are Two Row, Munich, and Crystal Light. The can features a rampant lion and bear facing each other as if they’re having some sort of duel. This was just a fine strong hoppy traditional West Coast IPA, I’d say. It made me dream of my next visit to California, hopefully later this year, and there is a plan afoot when I do go to visit this actual brewery in Paso Robles -- along with many other breweries, of course.Union Jack IPA (7.0% ABV --reviewed 20 July 2021)

  First Chop Brewing Company, Eccles, Greater Manchester:

  `
  • Wow, what a smell that bursts from the poptop! Yes! This is a pretty cool beer: a zizzy buzz rolling itself out across the tongue of tropicality. And it’s in a very neon-bright can as well. It would look good at a picnic, if one were allowed such a social type of thing these days. I suppose I could go to the park with a couple of cans of this while one friend sat at least two metres away from me with another couple of cans, and each of us could have a sandwich or a packet of crisps or something as well, just as long as we didn’t share. I suppose at a stretch one could call that a picnic. But I don’t think any ants would be particularly interested. Juicy IPA (5.0% ABV -- reviewed 6 June 2020)

  Five Oh Brew Company, Prestwich, Greater Manchester:

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  • Recently I had a bottle of this gift from a friend. Brewed with fresh bergamot, this is slightly tart, which I like. It’s bottle conditioned so I screwed up the pour slightly, producing a bit of cloudiness. But it still tasted nice, like a hoppy sour beer.Magic IPA (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 16 October 2016)

  Flying Dog Brewing, Frederick, Maryland:

  `
  • For my birthday last month Andrew gave me four bottles from this American craft brewery, all presented in a Have A Totes Amazeballs Birthday bag and accompanied by a sexy Jimmy the Bull card. My first taste was this lager, which is part of their Heat Series, brewed with ancho peppers and lime peel. It’s a fun beer. It’s not punch-out-wow-it’s-lime-and-chile exactly, but it’s fun. It would be great on a picnic. On second thought, with the high alcohol you might want to make that a picnic in your own back garden. There is a pink tinge to the tawny colour which makes me think of white zinfandel. Hey, I’ve had green beer and purple beer, so why not pink? This could be marketed as a Women’s Movement beer, perhaps with a pink kitty hat on the label. As I contemplated all of these things a pleasant heat was growing on my palate like a creeping rug on a cold night.Ancho Lime Paradise Lager (6.0% ABV -- reviewed 26 February 2017)
    `
  • This brew is good and zingy. I consumed a can during a Zoom pub quiz with eight friends whom I haven’t actually seen in the literal sense since March, even though three of the participants live a five-minute walk away. (I did well at the quiz but didn’t win, which doesn’t really bother me. At least I forced myself to be sociable after my awful grief-filled isolation week, and I’m glad I did.)Thunderpeel Hazy IPA (6.2% ABV -- reviewed 6 June 2020)

  Fourpure Brewering Company, London:

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  • This beer was “inspired by adventure”, which of course all of us are having just too much of this year. Let me recount some of my exciting moments in 2020: discovering a new local park? Buying a new prepared entree at the local Sainsburys? Organising a Zoom virtual pint with a friend? Whoa, slow down, girl! (And then there's today, which is the first day in my entire life that I got off work and could not go have a pint or a drink, whether I wanted to or not. This is because all of the pubs have had to close again, but I still have to walk several miles to work and back. Anyway, quit complaining because it’s a challenging world at the moment...) But back to this beer. It's refreshingly hoppy, tropical, crisp, and breezy, like riding in a fast-moving boat -- in my imagination, of course. We’re not allowed to travel at the moment...Hemisphere Session IPA (4.2% ABV -- reviewed 23 November 2020)
    `
  • With a graphic of a cassette tape on the can, this music-inspired beer has some fresh orange zest on top of the tropical fruitiness. I forgot to chill it a bit, which I’ve been doing with all of these cans of craft keg. But it is mid-December, the day that Boris has announced that 2020’s Christmas is still on, so the beer is cool enough to enjoy. And to add to the anticipation, I dropped the can on the kitchen floor, so I had to open it very carefully. With all that in mind, it’s turned out to be an easy drinking brew with a semi-modern hoppy bitter.Juicebox Citrus IPA (5.8% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)

  Freeminer Brewery, Coleford, Cottswalds:

  `
  • Located in the Forest of the Deans, this seven-year-old brewery bottles twenty percent of its beer. This particular selection features Maris Otter barley and choice grade Worcester Golding hops. But enough about ingredients; let's talk about taste! This is an OOOHH! beer! As I was picking up my glass in the kitchen I heard this "OOOHH! OOOHH! OOOHH!" bursting from the lounge where my tasting companion was taking his first sip. Mmm, yes, this is a fine brew! It has a golden colour, a delightful hoppiness, and the flavour of a spectacular sky with big, billowy clouds covering the entire grayscale, like a pleasantly cool, crisp, fresh breeze as you ride alone in your convertible, your favourite song on the radio...Trafalgar IPA (6.0% ABV -- reviewed 1 November 1999)

  Gamma Brewing, Copenhagen, Denmark:

  `
  • Brewed in collaboration with the London Beer Factory as part of their Wanderer series of beer styles from around the world, this is quite a refreshing beer, as one would expect with Citra and Cascade.

    Fuzzy Recall (6.3% ABV -- reviewed 4 May 2020)

  Good Chemistry Brewing, Bristol:

  `
  • This beer is dry hopped with Sabro, Talus, and El Dorado, with notes of pink grapefruit and coconut. I had a half pint of this recently at Two Sheds, and it was gorgeous. Drinking this out of the can was quite enjoyable, and of course quite exciting with those hops, and it was also a just reward for a stupidly physical day at work. I do love a piña colada every now and then, and I also love a coconut pineapple smoothie. So I’m pretty damn happy with this.King Piña DH Pineapple Pale Ale (5.0% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Abbeydale Brewing of Sheffield -- reviewed 30 December 2023)

  Goose Eye Brewery, Keighley, West Yorkshire:

  `
  • I keep seeing this brewery in bottles -- this brewery's beer in bottles, that is. (I've just pictured a shiplike building in a bottle with casks piled outside on the dock...although that would be fun to build, I'm getting sidetracked again...) This is a nice pale hoppy zippety-dooh-dah-what-a-nice-day brew. It's not a knock-your-socks-off kind of beer, but it's pleasant in a gently hopped sort of way.Wonky Donkey (4.3% ABV -- reviewed 1 July 2012)

  Goose Island Brewery, Chicago, Illinois:

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  • The label promises a "Bold Hop Finish". It is good and choppy-hoppy, clean and crisp, and much needed after wearing myself out moving furniture books all afternoon. It didn't occur to me until I was drinking this that I've had a couple of pints of this at the airport in Chicago, sitting at the bar being watched over by the goose head on the tap. Yes. This is good.Goose IPA (5.9% ABV -- reviewed 6 May 2017)
    `
  • Brewed with Amarillo hops and Pale, Pils, and Maris Otter malts, this is a very gentle, “easy drinking” beer. In fact, it’s so easy-drinking that it would probably go great with easy-listening music, and perhaps a really easy-going companion. I mean, if you really like that sort of thing. As I sip this, yes, I’m sure I could drink several of these at a party or a pub session without even being really aware of what I was drinking. But I miss the excitement of Goose Island IPA. I want to jump on a rocket to the moon! I want to skydive from the thermosphere! I want to pogo and skank on the head of a pin suspended above a flaming cauldron of HOPS-HOPS-HOPS! But then again that’s just my palate’s spirit. But I still think this is like settling for a zero-alcohol lager in a worldwide pub full of interesting brews. There’s nothing wrong with it, of course. Since I‘d bought a 4-pack I had three more cans, so hopefully it would grow on me.Midway IPA (4.1% ABV -- reviewed 20 July 2021)

  Harvey & Son Ltd, Lewes, East Sussex:

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  • I received a sample of this strong pale ale from an acquaintance who'd visited the Harvey Brewery after it suffered a huge loss after flooding in October 2000. This ale was produced with the malt left fermenting while the flood waters raged beneath. It's very red in colour, almost like an Amontillado sherry. Mmmm, it brought to mind walls and walled-in corpses, not floods. The first taste was surprisingly innocent for the strength, unlike the executioner it could prove to be. It was a very pleasant drop. It's good to know that if a brewery floods all is not lost...Harvey's Ouse Booze (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 16 April 2001)

  Heist Brewery, Sheffield, South Yorkshire:

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  • This is a collaboration with Sheffield’s own Heist Brewery, so it’s an all-Sheffield collaboration. Brewed with Chinook, Cryo Cascade, Cryo Centennial and Cryo Simcoe hops, it tastes like my sense of smell has become recently: multi-faceted, four-dimensional, like walking down a street and smelling every garden, every fruit bowl, every kitchen, and every wet pavement all at once. It's definitely the character of fruit surrounded by ozone. This is a rapidly nature-appreciating brew. So if I stop at Triple Point after work, can I get a pint of this? If I walk down the hill to Heist, can I get a pint of this? Or do I have to meet somewhere midway? Let’s see, according to Google Maps and my pub triangulation, that would be the Kommune multi-venue dining centre in Sheffield City Centre, which does have a bar. Hmm, I wonder...Shots Fired West Coast IPA (7.2% ABV -- reviewed 3 October 2022)

  Highwater Brewing Company, Sacramento, California:

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  • This beer comes in a 16-ounce can, so it's a full US pint. Brewed with Citra and Mosaic hops, it's actually quite exciting, but it's probably not as stressful as watching a couple of macaques attacking each other with cleavers. Actually, I would say it's much, much, much less stressful.Monkey Knife Fight Hazy IPA (7.0% ABV -- reviewed 25 July 2023)

  Hogs Back Brewery, Tongham, Surrey:

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  • This beer was the Silver Medal Winner in the Great British Beer Festival of 2000, not to mention the Best Bitter Gold Medal Winner. I have yet to try this on cask, but out of the bottle it poured well, imparting a fine quality bitterness, good for soothing a downtrodden spirit. As I downdrank my sample I noticed the label says "For the taste of yesteryear still enjoyed today." Well, as far as I know, this is today, not yesterday, although we're all living a fraction of a second in the past, so who's to say? Also on the label is "Best drink of the day." Mmmm, now that coffee time's over, yes! I heartily agree! This is a good traditional English bitter, precisely as it says on the label. Everything claimed is correct. It is not wrong. This is an honest, true, right, normal perpendicular beer, not the least bit crooked -- a straight beer for eccentric tongues to use as a roadmap. This is a clearly-posted beer, no detours -- so you'll be home in plenty of time for tea.T.E.A. (4.2% ABV -- reviewed 18 July 2001)

  Hopback Brewery, Salisbury, Wiltshire:

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  • This is brewed with barley and wheat malts, maize, and Pioneer, East Kent Goldings, Spalter, and Saaz hops -- and coriander. It does what it says on the bottle. It's a delightfully hoppy, bitter, spicy, golden ale. To be a bit redundant I would say it's very very ultra satisfying.Crop Circle (4.2% ABV -- reviewed 31 May 2009)

  Hoppy Road, Maxeville, France:

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  • This session IPA was one I purchased at a bottle shop in Bordeaux, and as I was so busy out visiting wine bars, wineries, and microbreweries, I brought this home with me to drink. Hopped with Embankment, Centennial, and HBC 630 hops, it’s a collaboration with Hazy, which is a bar in Paris. This beer was very mild and cute, not terribly exciting, but with that low an ABV in a can, one can’t always expect a roller-coaster ride. There was a gorgeous but slightly mysterious graphic on the can of a woman with a towel-wrapped head and body draped in a bathrobe, and she was smoking a cigarette in a cigarette holder with a cat on her lap, an open book nearby, and several unidentified objects, all seemingly floating on their own little clouds. The illustrator was Maarten Donder, a Dutch artist and musician who lives in Paris. So basically this is proof that France is brewing great craft beers just like the UK and America. In fact, when I suggested to my Bay Area beer-tasting friend that we should meet in Paris some day and explore all the new breweries there, he heartily agreed. (Maybe some day? Well, anything’s possible...)Take It Hazy (4.0% ABV -- reviewed 18 May 2024)

    Howling Hops, Hackney Wick, Greater London:

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    • I drank this single hopped pale ale with Triumph hops on a frozen Friday, while Croatia played Brazil in the World Cup. As the 0-0 score quickly changed in the final minutes to 1-1, my fingers kept turning white from the cold. So I figured the Triumph hops should be good for my entire wimpy, nesh constitution. Triumph is yet another hops from Washington State which is gently aromatic and quite tasty.Thunderball Express (4.8% ABV -- reviewed 20 December 2022)

    Humble Sea Brewery, Felton, California:

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    • This is a double dry-hopped foggy IPA with Citra, Azacca, and Nelson hops, and I chose this in the brewery's Santa Cruz bottle shop because I used to be an avid boogieboarder when I was in my teens. My friend Rick and I drank this late at night while we were sitting in our private patio overlooking the Santa Cruz Pier on the California coast while listening to the roar of sea lions. It was nice but a bit fruitier than what I would have preferred, and as my stomach was rumbling a bit from overroasted broccoli, I could have used something a bit drier.Boogie Board Olympics (6.4% ABV -- reviewed 4 July 2022)

    Innis & Gunn, Edinburgh, Scotland:

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    • This is one of the most unusual beers I've had. Produced in a limited amount of only 64,000 bottles, this beer is aged in American White Oak casks which are hand-picked in Kentucky and shipped over to Scotland. Then the casks are locked inside a traditional Dunnage warehouse and aged for a minimum of 30 days. After blending the beer is matured for a further 47 days. What this results in is a strong hoppy beer with a fresh burst of orange and the classy oakiness of a fine California red wine -- that gorgeous wine the California vineyards don't export to the UK because they keep it for their own state. This is a truly fine beer. Fine. FINE! What a great unique character it has! I want to settle down by a roaring fire and read this beer, flicking its lovely pages with my fingers. An iPad simply would not do it justice.Innis & Gunn IPA (7.7% ABV -- reviewed 5 December 2010)

    Jennings Brewing Company Cockermouth, Cumbria:

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    • Brewed with English Goldings and Slovenian hops, this is easy-drinking but sparklingly hoppy in that old-fashioned English pale hoppy way. I thought I recognised something: that distinct Goldings flavour from my Kent and Shepherd Neame days. I really like this theoretical beer! It's named in honour of John Dalton, who was from Cumbria and was famous for proposing in the early 1800s that all matter was composed of atomic bonds. That taste of Goldings reminds me of the olden days, when we were still allowed to kiss and hug each other, Britain was still part of Europe, the USA wasn’t in danger of becoming a fascist dictatorship, and lip-reading had not become an obsolete skill. Yep, I suppose that proves what a dinosaur I must be.Atomic Theory IPA (3.8% ABV -- reviewed 23 November 2020)
      `
    • This beer was name for the invention of the pencil in Cumbria, where graphite was discovered back in the 1500s. This is a hoppy beer, or HB, brewed with New World and Antipodean hops. It's pleasant and easy-drinking. I didn't try sketching a cartoon with the can, though.Fine Line (4.0% ABV -- reviewed 4 May 2020)

    Kelham Island Brewing Company, Sheffield, South Yorkshire:

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    • This is basically just Pale Rider, even in a bottle, which I consider to be a pale comparison to Kelham Island's easier-on-the-legs but snappier Easy Rider.Pale Rider (5.2% ABV -- reviewed 1 January 2011)
      `
    • This seemed an appropriate beer for the day, as earlier my perfectly good functioning three-way printer/scanner/photocopier suddenly started to make horrible noises and stopped feeding the paper, apparently because of a tiny plastic part that had broken. I was also having problems with trans-Atlantic Zoom and WhatApp connections and other shit. But as it turned out, this beer being the first Kelham Island brew I’d had for a long time, it was zingily hoppily great! And at 4.3% I’d happily drink a couple of these as pints in a pub. Yum! It’s brewed with Centennial and Sultana hops and pale ale and oat malts. And it’s really good! Thanks, Kelham Island!Stop Telling Us What To Brew!!! Session Pale Ale (4.3% ABV -- reviewed 20 July 2021)

    Kern River Brewing Company, Kernville, California:

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    • When I was visiting Bakersfield earlier this year, one Sunday afternoon my sister-in-law and I went to Ethel's Old Corral to see the Canyon River Band who were performing out on the back deck. When I went inside to buy us drinks, I was pleased to see they had a can of this beer, as the two of us had just been up to Lake Isabella, and we'd eaten lunch at the Kern River Brewing Company. Brewed with Saaz hops and with an easy malt background, it was pretty bland. But hey, it was better than a lager. The concert was magical, featuring an audience of classic old cowboys, African-American cowboys, Latino cowboys, Native American bikers, and assorted young people, all enjoying the music and dancing. Next time I'll probably stick to the Lagunitas IPA.Isabella Blonde (4.5% ABV -- reviewed 25 July 2023)

    Kirkstall Brewery, Kirkstall, Leeds, West Yorkshire:

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    • This beer comes in a very attractive can, black with a metallic blue William Morris/paisley sort of design. It’s a nice reward after another work week and feeling a bit more hopeful about the American elections. But what hops are in it? And why is it called Spokane? Is it because of the Eastern Washington State hops? So many questions as I sip it and enjoy it...Spokane West Coast IPA (6.0% ABV -- reviewed 23 November 2020)
      `
    • This is my second brew from Kirkstall, and the can is equally attractive in a sort of William Morris-meets-paisley kind of way, with green designs on a black background. I can’t figure out what the aromatic aspect is, but it certainly tastes nice and is easy to drink, which I preferred on this particular evening. It’s a delightfully peaceful beer.Virtuous Aromatic Session IPA (4.5% ABV -- reviewed 23 November 2020)

    Kona Brewing Company, Honolulu, Hawaii:

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    • Brewed with Galaxy and Citra hops and Pale 2 Row Premium and Caramel 20 malts, this beer is very pleasant, and it’s hoppier than what I was expecting from a Hawaiian beer. I guess I’ve got a lot to learn about Hawaii, even though one of my favourite cousins has lived there for years. This Big Wave was the second can of beer I attempted to enjoy after sitting in our back garden on a cold lockdown day with a friend. Because we were allowed to socialise outside with a small distanced group, our friend Mike came down to have a couple of cans of beer and some nibbles with us. It was a good idea, and also the only 3D socialising we were allowed to do. But the fact that the temperature hadn’t reached much above zero degrees meant that it was quite uncomfortably freezing outside. I must admit it was very peaceful and quiet, but probably because all of the other people in the neighbourhood were being sensible and staying indoors where it was warm. Big Wave Golden Ale (4.5% ABV -- reviewed 20 July 2021)

    Kuhnhenn Brewing Company, Warren, Michigan:

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    • This beer is made with Citra, Centennial, and Amarillo hops which have been added throughout the brewing process. It also features lots of grapefruit. Grapefruit itself has given me a terrible stomach for years, but fortunately the brewing process tends to denature everything bad about it. This is quite majestically great and reminds me a bit of Ballast Point’s Grapefruit Sculpin’ IPA. Hang ten, the sun has finally come out!Hop Smash Grapefruit IPA (7.4% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Abbeydale Brewing Company, Sheffield -- reviewed 27 August 2020)

    Lagunitas Brewery, Petaluma, California:

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    • One day after work I relaxed with a can of this offering from a favourite American brewery. The statement on top of the Lagunitas tin read "12 ounces of malt, hops, yeast, love, and vibe in a solution of dihydrogen oxide captured in an alumin-yum wrapper". This particular beer was named after the date "when the River Styx froze, when the final pig took flight, the last winged monkey departed the darkly fragrant netherlands, as wishes became horses and all the beggars rode, under a newly-blued moon at dawn on the very 12th of November the 2nd-to-last draft brewery in America pressed the green 'start' button on their canning line." It also said it was a hop-forward beer, pure, cold, and bitter. I did actually chill it first, in deference to a California craft beer in a can. And yum! I have to say it was extremely satisfying. "A strong statement of hops", said Andrew when he tasted it. "A mighty big beer." Put that on the label, Lagunitas!12th of Never Ale (5.5% ABV -- reviewed 20 October 2018)
      `
    • Brewed with Comet, Sabra, Citra, and Cashmere, this distinctly yellow brew is a bit too sweet for my taste. But the Cashmere lends an exotic perfume which is pleasant. The can is decorated with a dog with a black eye. I'm not sure who the dog is, but apparently Lagunitas is a very dog-friendly brewing company, so it must be one of their canine regulars. This was a nice beer break after a chaotic evening I spent with my friends in Westwood, California.Hazy Wonder IPA (6.0% ABV -- reviewed 4 July 2022)
      `
    • Enjoyed over a couple of evenings while visiting California, all I remember about this beer is it's quite strong but quite good.Super Cluster (8.0% ABV -- reviewed 4 July 2022)

    Left Handed Giant Brewpub, Bristol:

    `
    • One day after work I relaxed with a can of this offering from a favourite American brewery. The statement on top of the Lagunitas tin read "12 ounces of malt, hops, yeast, love, and vibe in a solution of dihydrogen oxide captured in an alumin-yum wrapper". This particular beer was named after the date "when the River Styx froze, when the final pig took flight, the last winged monkey departed the darkly fragrant netherlands, as wishes became horses and all the beggars rode, under a newly-blued moon at dawn on the very 12th of November the 2nd-to-last draft brewery in America pressed the green 'start' button on their canning line." It also said it was a hop-forward beer, pure, cold, and bitter. I did actually chill it first, in deference to a California craft beer in a can. And yum! I have to say it was extremely satisfying. "A strong statement of hops", said Andrew when he tasted it. "A mighty big beer." Put that on the label, Lagunitas!Hidden Waterfall Sour IPA (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 19 November 2023)
      `
    • Brewed with Idaho 7, Amarillo, Simcoe, and Nectaron hops, with a cold addition of Citra Incognito and Cryo, this beer is described as offering a ripe, tropical spiciness, with flavours of passion fruit, melon, peach, black tea, and pine. There was an interesting graphic on the can which looked like a mosaic of rock layers, fossils, classical ruins, etc. I drank this on an extremely rare day spent home from work because of complete exhaustion caused by over-the-top stress and lack of sleep. But it ended up snowing, so I probably would have been sent home from work anyway. I wasn’t in the mood for snow right then, but at least it wasn’t raining, because we still had wet walls because of the neighbour’s faulty gutter. (Fortunately it’s finally been fixed.) Anyway, this is a comforting beer, a beer to soothe my intensely worried mind. There, there, now, JC, sip some of this, taste all the fruits and the trees, and everything will be all right.Living Labyrinth Hazy IPA (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 18 March 2024)
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    • This contains sour cherry and peach and is brewed with Extra Pale malt and Chateau White Wheat. The fruit has been soured overnight, and then the beer is lightly hopped with Simcoe leaf, and finally combined with the fruit. Wow, and I mean Wow. It had been a busy day for me, with my mind all over the place, and as I was writing my notes for this beer I was being talked to about a major earthquake and another beer, simultaneously. So it wasn’t exactly a relaxing beer, but it took me on a mini-holiday. Yep.Sacred Souvenir (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 18 March 2024)

    Lengthwise Brewing Company, Bakersfield, California:

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    • I picked a six-pack of this up at the brewery in Bakersfield, as I'd just had a pint of it on draft. The can promises "hoppy goodness" and a bold hop aroma with citrus and pine flavours. It's dry hopped with Citra, Simcoe, Centennial, and Amarillo hops. Nice.Citra Simcoe Centennial Ale (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 4 July 2022)
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    • This yummy beer is hoppy, tropically juicy, and unfiltered, but the haziness gets a bit smoothie-tedious after a while.Hazy HCH West Coast Hazy Ale (7.0s% ABV -- reviewed 25 July 2023)

    Liquid Light Brewing Company, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire:

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    • The list of hops includes Citra leaf hot side, Motueka T-90, Amarillo T-90, Ekuanot T-90, and Simcoe T-90. So just what are T-90 hops? Looking the term up online, I learned that they are hops pellets that are produced from kiln-dried, whole leaf hop cones which have been hammered into oblivion and formed into pellets, which for some reason makes me think back to when I was a girl feeding my pet hamsters and rats. The tasting notes suggest complex hops, stone fruit, berries and pine, which are just exactly what JC’s doctor ordered. I enjoyed this on a cold crisp clear night after Storm Christof decided to dump lots of rain on the British Isles, and more importantly, it was also on the first day of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris being President and Vice President of the USA. The beer is quite thickly hazy, but ooh, yes, that hops character, especially the tangy fruit and the pine resin. The aroma as I poured it out of the can into the glass produced an audible yem! from me, thick and chewy with a heavenly incense. The nice green can features sketchings of some sort of unicellular life, or perhaps a pattern of green leatherette for a handbag. Or maybe the design is supposed to suggest floating globs of green oil in a green ocean. Whatever it’s supposed to be, it’s green, and I like green. Anything red, green, or black is mighty fine with me.Supernaut IPA (5.5% ABV -- reviewed 20 October 2018)

    Little Critters, Sheffield, South Yorkshire:

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    • Brewed with Columbus, Centennial, and Citra hops with fresh Kaffir lime leaves and citrus peel, I must say that this is a bit sweet in character. But the lime helps temper that sensation. I think I like the can better than the beer, actually. But if I pretend this is a lime sour beer -- that’s “lime sour” beer, not “lime” sour beer -- then I can enjoy it more. C Monster (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 20 July 2021)
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    • This is a dry hopped pale ale with whole leaf Columbus, Citra, and various other hops added later in the brewing. It’s a nice reward for a technostressed day amid temperature extremes. After I met a friend for a dogwalk and a 3-dimensional chat, my fingers were frozen so solid I couldn’t operate them at all for zippers or writing a note . And then for dinner, a bite of some absolutely delicious spicy Lebanese moutabal from a nearby restaurant apparently had a tiny bit of the hottest chile I have ever experienced, and my normally high tolerance for heat was completely humbled as I was rendered unable to eat or speak for nearly a half hour. So I’d travelled from the extremes of the Arctic all the way to Death Valley in just one afternoon.The Chameleon Series: Galaxy (5.5% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
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    • This is a dry hopped pale ale brewed with whole leaf Columbus hops. Then Citra is added, followed by a dry hopping with Waimea hops from New Zealand. It’s a pleasant splashy wave of hops. If I roll it with just the right rhythm across my tongue, back and forth, I can get that feeling of waiting on my bodyboard for that perfect wave to appear that will make the whole day (or in this case, the can of beer) worthwhile. It’s not a choppy hops or a zingy hops, but a well-choreographed hops, perfectly foaming the top of the base of those Pacific Northwest hops. Nice. Kowabunga!The Chameleon Series: Waimea (5.5% ABV -- reviewed 20 July 2021)

    Little Mesters Brewing Company, Sheffield, South Yorkshire:

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    • I bought this can at a stall at the annual arts festival at Sheffield Botanic Gardens earlier this year, when things were a hell of a lot warmer than they currently are. It was named after Stan Shaw, a Sheffield cutler who worked until he was 93. Stan was a Master Craftsman, and his name was stamped on every knife and blade he made. Buying the beer helps contribute toward raising $10,000 toward a permanent public memorial to Stan, who died age 94 in 2021. It’s a pleasant little beer, not spectacular but hoppy and drinkable.Stan IPA (4.6% ABV -- reviewed 20 December 2022)

    London Beer Factory, Greater London:

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    • This is part of the London brewery's Wanderer series of beer styles from around the world. It is quite a refreshing beer, as one would expect with Citra and Cascade.Fuzzy Recall (6.3% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Gamma Brewing, Copenhagen -- reviewed 4 May 2020)
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    • This is a refreshingly cool and hoppy brew, suggestive of tropical citrus and pine. It was great for a pleasant temperate day between the heat waves. It was in a pretty can as well, with a subtle abstract jungle design. It’s a quiet beer.Jungle Trip NEIPA (5.2% ABV -- reviewed 20 August 2022)
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    • This blood orange and cranberry sour beer is actually red, definitely the reddest beer I’ve ever had, if I’ve ever even had a red beer before. It’s a Berliner Weisse, which makes me think of more of the colour white rather than red. It’s yeasted with Bry-97, which I think is probably the important aspect of both the character and the taste. Wow, it’s a lot of fun. I’ve already been enjoying blood orange as an ingredient in IPAs, but the cranberry addition in this one makes up for any potential lack of superhoppiness. It’s a fun beer, a pure Tier 3 Xmess quaff.Sour Solstice (4.8% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)

    Lost Coast Brewery, Eureka, California:

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    • When I visited my friends Mary and Toep in Altadena, California, we shared a bottle of this beer. The label describes this as a smooth, full-bodied, unfiltered beer that is "radically hopped to give it an intense spiritual aroma." The beer is orange in colour, and there is a distinct bark character to the aroma with nicely punchy and aromatic hops. It was a good appetizer for our evening out in Pasadena.Indica IPA (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 29 June 2013)

    Loxley Brewing Company, Loxley, South Yorkshire:

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    • Brewed with Mosaic and Azacca hops from the Yakima Valley, this beer also has a good dose of Crystal Malt, giving it a dark golden colour and depth of character. The can also proudly announces that Loxley Spring Water is used as well. Of course, one needs to use some water in their brewing, as the older of us remember from the Olympia Beer TV commercials, whose catchphrase was "it's the water". But those ads were referring to artesian well water, whereas I assume--as Sheffield is the city of seven rivers--the brewery is obviously referring to natural springs from the River Loxley. This beer offers a powerful taste, and it's very chewy, if you know what I mean. Wait a minute--coincidentally, is that Chewy, as in Chewbaca, on the can? On second glance it's more like Big Foot standing in the shadows. But after examining it even more closely, I think it's a threatening raven, standing in front of a ceiling fan that's been attacked by a sally of machine gun fire. But who, or what,is Kasper? It's not spelled the same way as Kaspar Hauser, the German boy who supposedly grew up in a totally dark cave. In Persian the name Kasper means "bringer of treasure". Hmm, it could mean anything, and only the brewer truly knows. So I'll just drink this beer and wonder instead about that ceiling fan.Kasper West Coast IPA (5.5% ABV -- reviewed 24 March 2022)

    Mad Squirrel Brewing Company, Potten End, Hertfordshire:

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    • This is a New England IPA, unfiltered and naturally hazy, brewed with Citra, Mosaic, Amarillo, El Dorado, and Idaho 007 hops, and oats and wheat. Wow, what a basket of flavours! Wow! It’s got a bit of a sweet edge (it’s suggested with dessert dishes), but a bouquet like a distinctly American pint in some slightly experimental hipster-filled brewpub hidden away in La Habra or Wilmington or Temescal or some other unlikely place. This beer is a bit too intense a flavour to imagine drinking a whole pint of. Perhaps as part of a flight, in a 3-ounce taster glass. I think, if I’m honest with myself, it’s a little too much of a mixture of different hops that maybe all shouldn’t be together. It’s like a band that seems exciting and promising but ends up splitting up after four months because of the clash of egos. Andrew’s comment on that was that it turns out they’re a cover band.Roadkill (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 6 June 2020)
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    • This beer is brewed with Summit and Mosaic and has a very interesting character of tropicality mixed with dankness. Yes, this beer is what I like. This is very satisfying in that it has so many attributes that work together perfectly. I have to remember where I bought this can, as I need to buy another one soon. And the big 440ml can is a gorgeous red-on-black design that matches my shirt and my headband perfectly. This is great! I’m really excited about this beer.Sumo American Pale Ale (4.7% ABV -- reviewed 6 June 2020)

    Magic Rock Brewing Company, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire:

    • This is hopped with T90 Cascade, Simcoe, Mosaic, and Citra hops, then dry-hopped with Simcoe, Mosaic, and Citra lupulin powder, and including WL, P066, and London Fog yeasts. This beer is a complicated creation, with that distinct Cryo/Cascade touch on the palate, like a snowy walk on the top of Mt Rainier while listening to a chemistry class on your headphones. It’s very nice.Dewwwwd!Grower Owned IPA (6.0s% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Yakima Chief Hopunion, Yakima, Washington -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
    • This beer is brewed with Cara and Extra Pale malts and Cascade, Centennial, Chinook, and Citra hops. It comes in a tie-dye can with a surfer theme. Consumed during the first week of the Lockdown, this brew offered good waxin’-the-board zingy hops which brightened up the suddenly cold, dark and hail-speckled day.Dewwwwd!Hang Loose Epic West Coast IPA (7.7% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Vocation Brewery, Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire -- reviewed 4 May 2020)
    • This is a nice grapefruit bitter with a really nice grapefruity smell, like real grapefruit. Sadly I can’t really do grapefruit, not because of any medications but because of a super-sensitive stomach since I was in my twenties. I used to love half of a grapefruit with my breakfast when I was growing up, so I do still love the taste. And I have since discovered that even if a brew uses actual grapefruit in its brewing (which a lot of them don’t, as it’s a flavour character of certain hops), it’s a bit denatured and doesn’t bother my stomach. So bring on the grapefruit, I say!Highwire Grapefruit Pale Ale (5.5% ABV -- reviewed 6 June 2020)
    • Yeah! It had been a really down day, with massive, massive, massive stress coming from several different directions. In addition I had awakened that morning with a pain in my right heel that hurt very badly when I put weight on it. As someone who’s physically fit and has always had wonderfully healthy feet, this was really disturbing to me, and as it rained all day nonstop I decided not to go out for my religiously daily walk. So after wasting the day staring dejectedly into space, this beer was the good hoppy blast that I needed. Yeah! Hit me one more time! Hit me with your hoppy stick! I will definitely buy this inhalation of new life again.dInhaler Hoppy IPA (4.5% ABV -- reviewed 27 August 3030)
    • I haven’t had a black IPA for quite awhile. But it’s been a cold wintery week with the sun setting mid-afternoon, so why not? I always promise myself I’ll veer away from my pale IPAs and have some good ol’ porter in December, so why not an IPA that looks like a porter? It’s a good roasty IPA as well. It’s brewed with a nice assortment of Cascade, Citra, Columbus, Magnum, and Nelson Sauvin hops as well as Carafa Special 3, Golden Promise, and Munich malts, so it’s a bit like an around-the-world holiday cruise. “Cruise ships roasting on an open fire..."Magic 8 Ball Black IPA (7.0% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
    • This is a mildly hazy pale ale which has turned out to be another nice hoppy brew, very pale. Does the “Life” half of the balance refer to the nonmurkiness, perhaps indicating being able to see clearly through this Covid-19 murk into maybe a lower tier level and the future of everyone being vaccinated and life again returning to normal? Or is it simply that this hazy brew isn’t as hazy as others I’ve had recently? Could it be the lighting? The malts used are Golden Promise, Malted Oats, and Torrefied Wheat, the yeast is London Fog, but there is no mention of what the hops are except that they’re Australian. The beer has a nice mango grapefruit character to it, so I’m happy.Murk-Life Balance (5.0% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
    • This is a DOH NEIPA. I understand the New England IPA, and the Double Hopped, but the O? Oh, I get it, it’s Double Dry Hopped. Anyway, that’s all the information there is on the can, along with lots of bold graffiti-style colours and the word SALT in the middle, which at first confused me. This is another beer brewed with cryo hops, specifically Cryo Citra and Cryo Simcoe, then dry-hopped with Idaho 7 and Simcoe, and more of that London Fog yeast. I’m sipping this as I’m finishing reading a present-day dystopian novel, Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam. Considering we’re living in a hopefully only temporary pandemic-caused dystopia, I guess I decided to escape into something slightly more dystopian. I know how to have a good time, and Ripe Times seems to work well with it. Ripe Times (6.5% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Salt Beer Factory, Shipley, West Yorkshire -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
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    • Day 3 of the Covid-19 lockdown's cocktail hour pleasure was a can of this surprise. Whoa-hoh!! Jesus, it’s really something! I could never handle a high-ABV beer like this in a pub, as I don’t think I’d make it out the front door without falling flat on my face. Brewed with Simcoe, Amarillo, and Mosaic hops, this is a collaboration with Magic Rock Brewery in Huddersfield. I doubt that my Unkletom in Sacramento, with whom I was having an overseas phone conversation, had any idea what alcoholic gustatory pleasure I was experiencing.Yelamu (7.4% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Thornbridge Brewing, Bakewell, Derbyshire -- reviewed 29 March 2020)

    Marble Brewery, Manchester:

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    • This is brewed with Citra BBC and Simcoe hops, and I’m wondering what the BBC stands for. Not the British Broadcasting System, and surely not the local football hooligans who call themselves the Blades Business Club. Ah, it stands for the Boston Beer Company, who developed a better kind of hop pellet for brewing hoppier beers. But back to the Hop, Skip, and Juicy: it’s a great beer that suits this warm summery April day, with people blasting music through huge speakers and conversing with their neighbours, all the people lucky enough to have front porches so they can social distance. And I’m trying to get Vitamin D sunshine exercise therapy for my broken heart. The can is very pretty, the colours of tropical fruit, a la Carmen Miranda’s headdress. Chica-chica-boom!Hop, Skip, and Juicy Pale Ale (5.7% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Vocation Brewery, Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire -- reviewed 6 June 2020)

    Marstons Brewery, Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire:

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    • Brewed with Goldings, Fuggles, and Cascade hops, this has a traditional English hops taste with a slight aftertaste of the Cascade. It's quite a nice rounded hoppy drop. The ABV is a bit high for pub drinking, but I was home relaxing on the sofa after work, so I wasn't too worried...Old Empire IPA (5.7% ABV -- reviewed 8 June 2017)

    Märzen, Urbock, Germany:

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    • Our friend Ali let us sample some of this unique Bavarian smoked beer. This strikes me as a good camping beer. Better still, a good beach party beer! It's dark and smoky but surprisingly light and pleasant, and would be very warming around a roaring fire while reclined on those canvas beach chairs, the waves roaring in the background with the smell of plankton from the glowing red tide...Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier (5.1% ABV -- reviewed 23 March 2005)

    Meantime Brewing Company, Greenwich, Greater London:

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    • Recently I tried an old birthday bottle of this brew. This is intensely hoppy as it says on the bottle, with a fruity zing as well. Drinking it is like sipping intensely hoppy strawberries without the sweetness. It was a truly different experience for a post-stair-falling day.Curious IPA (5.6% ABV -- reviewed 26 October 2013)

    Mikkeller Mikkeller De Proef Brouwerij, Lochristi-Hijfte, Belgium:

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    • After a thoroughly stressful day from all directions, coming from all sides, I popped open this Xmess present from my friend Mel. It’s a nice IPA, surprisingly hoppy and zoomy for a Belgian beer, and it’s in a raspberry-smoothie coloured can with a graphic of one person blowing a large white bubble into another person’s face. I suppose that’s the “burst” part.Mikkeller Burst IPA (5.5% ABV -- reviewed 30 April 2023)

    Mikkeller Brewery Copenhagen, Denmark:

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    • This passionfruit IPA is brewed with Mosaic and Nelson Sauvin hops. I drank a can of this at home on a ridiculous day when the rain would not stop and the car battery, after being parked for six days, was completely stone-dead. So it seemed like a good day for a can on the sofa. This beer is a bit sweet, though. I should have suspected that with the passionfruit suggestion, and my American childhood associations with super-sweet soft drinks like Hi C and Kool Aid. But I was hoping that, as it was an IPA with two hops I really like, the hops would temper the sweetness. But then there’s that high-alcohol as well. Oh well, it’s only a Three of Diamonds. It didn’t promise to be an Ace of Spades.Three of Diamonds (5.6% ABV, brewed in collaboration with Thornbridge Brewery, Bakewell, Derbyshire -- reviewed 14 December 2021)

    Modern Times Beer, San Diego, California:

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    • This West Coast IPA features Ahtanum, Citra, and Simcoe hops, as well as Munich, Pale, and Wheat malts. With characters of mango, citrus, lychee, pint, and toasted malt promised on the can, this is pretty damn good. I sipped it at the end of yet another survived day, where nothing bad happened and there were no horrible depression dips -- in other words, just the usual, ordinary, toleration of this dystopian reality and devolution of the normally sociable human race. So this beer was quite a pleasant reward. I completely understand the connotation of the name.Futureproof (6.2% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Brewdog, Fraserburg, Scotland -- reviewed 27 August 2020)

    Moor Beer Company, Bristol:

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    • This is another unfined New World IPA in a tin. On the front of the tin it say "Hoppiness = Happiness", a sentiment I totally agree with. After a lousy boring hopeless workday this was another welcome refreshment. Two years later during the Covid-19 lockdown I tried this again. Another hazy and fruity beer, this comes in yet another can that describes the beer as naturally carbonated or “can-conditioned”. So what exactly does this mean? I had just returned from a short walk through Bole Hill, on a cloudy and cold (but thankfully not rainy) day, with shoes that had finally dried out after getting completely soaked three days earlier. As I stepped into a house Andrew had just lit a stick of Rainforest incense, which was a perfect smell to follow a rain-fresh woods walk. And My Moor Beer can was black and green and covered with hops flowers, further suggesting nature’s subtle aromas to please those souls like me who have a super-acute sense of smell Yes, I needed this mood change, for however long it was going to last.Hoppiness (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 22 April 2018 and again on 27 August 2020)

    Morland:

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    • This fine beer, from the second oldest brewery in the UK (established in 1711), has a long taste, very bitter, and it tingles the tastebuds with a tantalizing tannicness (Or is it tannicity?) It has a great aftertaste, too, as if it were wearing an ankle-length leather coat. This tastes nothing like a beer named after a geriatric chicken; in fact it was named after a car, an unusual speckled vintage MG.Old Speckled Hen (5.2% ABV -- reviewed 1 November 1999)

    Neepsend Brewing Company, Sheffield, South Yorkshire:

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    • This is a session IPA with Citra and Mosaic. I was struck by the pretty can, yellow blending into orange as a backdrop for strong modern black print. But when I seated myself in the back garden and poured some into a glass, I was a bit put off by the colour. It was quite amber and very hazy. I mean, I’m used to the pale hazy ales that tend to look like pear nectar. But this looked a bit like a swamp, or some body of water I wouldn’t want to be swimming in, even with goggles. But it tasted nice and refreshing and tropically hoppy. I suppose, having had a few black IPAs as well as a green beer and a purple beer, that I can just close my eyes to fully enjoy it. After all, the afternoon had turned out to offer the most perfect temperature and feeling I have experienced in a long time, and as I sipped my beer (without looking at it) I laughed at a massive pigeon who was thrashing around in the top branches of a tree that was too small for the bird. And I was fascinated by the spider who was resting in between paving stones by the wall, also absolutely massive both in legspan and body and head mass. I know this would put off arachnophobes, but I found it absolutely fascinating. What a pleasantly slightly surreal afternoon it had turned out to be.Alcis (4.2% ABV -- reviewed 27 August 2020)
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    • hazy IPA brewed with Ekuanot, Azacca, Citra, and Simcoe hops and a Vermont yeast strain, oats, and wheat, this is another nice beer. My lip was still a bit numb from an earlier dental appointment in the day, so I was hoping I didn’t dribble this beer down my front. It reminded me of sitting in the garden of the Neepsend Brewery’s tap, the Wellington, back in the days between lockdowns, because the Wellington has consistently felt like a safe pub with a clean, socially distanced garden with heaters. Someday, someway, we’ll be back in the pubs, and I could end up having a pint of this on cask. I couldn’t help wondering where the name Bahamut comes from. If it’s a Mexican dog, it’s misspelled. When I googled the name I learned that it’s a sea dragon that lies underneath the supporting structure of the earth, and it rides on a giant whale. Hmm, is that what I’m getting on my palette?Bahamut Hazy IPA (6.8% ABV -- reviewed 20 July 2021)

    New Bristol Brewing Company, Bristol:

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    • Brewed with Idaho 7, Strata, and Citra hops, this is a hazy brew, featuring butterflies, bees, and ladybirds on the can. I drank this on a day that I was sent home from work the moment I had arrived, because of the transportation stoppage threats of Storm Babet. Earlier, in just the one minute it had taken me to run for the bus for work, I got totally soaked, so when I arrived at work I really wanted to dry out first, not to mention have a wee, before I turned around and headed back home. When I finally did get back home, the rain was very light outside on the hill where I live, but apparently lower parts of the city were experiencing flooding. So I really needed a can of something interesting to cope with my sudden Friday cabin fever. This beer is hazy and lightly hoppy, like the little insects that are hopping and flitting on their wings on the can. It was pleasant enough, but perhaps I should have opened that year-old coconut stout instead.Wings New England Pale (5.0% ABV -- reviewed 19 November 2023)

      North Brew Company, Sheepscar, Leeds, West Yorkshire:

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      • TThis is a hazy double IPA brewed with Idaho 7, Talus, and Citra hops. Late last May, on an extremely jetlagged day and after sleeping long hours and still being sleepy, I pushed myself out of the house between rain showers for a refreshing walk. Back home I refreshed myself even more with a can of this. I sat on the sofa reminiscing about my extremely recent California trip, the last week spent drinking craft beers up and down the Central Coast and the Bay Area. And sipping this beer jetted me back to Santa Cruz, just for the day, where I could duck out of the rain and into the ocean breeze. What a refreshingly uplifting beer, possessing a complex strength cooled with whistling breezes.Abstract Lens DIPA (8.0% ABV -- reviewed 15 November 2022)
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      • The only thing I could find out about this beer is that it contains Kveik yeast. But whatever hops are used, they are totally cool. Basically a wheat beer, this was slightly sweet in a banana-pineapple way, and gentle. As the can was a cool green, I felt as though the beer should be green as well. But it was surprisingly yellow, in a very hazy way.Green Curve (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 20 July 2021)
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      • This is a hazy beer brewed with Mosaic and Ekuanot hops. I tried this on the first day of Sheffield’s Tier 3 limitations, which meant our local pub had to close again. So we’ve once again started up the weekly online Olly’s Zoom Quiz. Because there are always at least seven of us and therefore the time on Zoom is limited, we decided to try Google Duo. But because of sound problems, we ended up going back to Zoom. Ah, the trials and tribulations of virtual life...anyway I'm pleased to say that Lost Cosmonauts is absolutely AMAZING! Delicious! It's wonderfully hoppy and perfect! This is a truly delicious beer! I apologise for all the exclamation points, but they're well-deserved! Now, I just have to remember where I bought this so I can get some more.Lost Cosmonauts (6.0% ABV -- a collaboration with Thornbridge Brewery, Sheffield, South Yorkshire -- reviewed 23 November 2020)
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      • This is really nice, with quite a strong taste, but it has a sort of an Abbeydale Deception aura about it. The hops are Citra, HBC 353, and Bru-1, with Maris Otter, Oat Malt, and Flaked Wheat malts. North Bridge (7.2% ABV -- a collaboration with Thornbridge Brewery, Sheffield, South Yorkshire -- reviewed 6 June 2020)
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      • I bought this beer was because the front of the can says “PNTA”, which is a company I knew well from Seattle, as my ex-husband and another good friend worked there, and I even designed their first website and used to go in to do occasional scanning and editing work. But on this can of beer, as the N has a tilde over it, it’s actually PÑTA. Still, the thought of piñatas reminds me of the Christmas parties with cousins we used to have when I was a girl, eating Mexican food and smashing the piñata, years before my cousins and I all discovered more rewarding things in life and the festive season than little wrapped candies hidden inside papier-mâché donkeys and chickens. Inside this non-papier-mâché-but-festively-green-and-yellow can is a very hazy beer imparting guava-rich zoopy tropicality. It’s quite a nice brew.Piñata (4.5% ABV -- reviewed 27 August 2020)

      Northern Monk:

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      • This is a very drinkable IPA, and I can easily imagine being thoroughly content with a couple of pints of this in a pub. Remember those things? Do you remember sitting at the bar on a stool, sipping a freshly poured pint and talking to, I don’t know, maybe three or four three-dimensional friends? Wow, those were the days...as I sit sipping this can of eternal comfort I can only hope the pub closure will not become eternal as well.Eternal Session IPA (4.1% ABV -- reviewed 6 June 2020)
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      • On the can it says: “Brian Dickson, brewer, described as an affable and vaguely eccentric brewing wizard in oversized wellies", so somehow I can picture him perfectly. The beer he’s created is quite a nice starter for this c’mon-let’s-get-it-over-with New Year’s Eve before 2020 is finally done and dusted. Thank god! It’s got an appropriately cool, frosty hoppy character for the cool, frosty day.Faith Hazy Pale Ale (5.4% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
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      • "Twist Edition". This beer is a collaboration between Northern Monk and INSA, who’s a graffiti artist from Leeds, and also the Faith in Futures Foundation who, with each can of beer sold, donates money to charity and community projects that tackle injustice across society, which is a great thing for a beer to do. It’s brewed with Citra and El Dorado hops as well, so it tastes pretty good as well.Faith In Futures DDPA IPA (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 20 July 2021)
        `
      • On the evening of my mom’s hip replacement surgery, postponed from the day before, I calmed myself with this brew. It’s in a pleasantly greeeeeeeen 330ml can, evoking images of green grass, green pines, green mountains, a green logo, green letters, greenly calming caresses. “Hoppy, Tropical, Zesty”, it says on the can. “Welcome to where the journey began, now let our journey begin. Canned in the North with Kelly Hall. My fears are outer space and lava.” “Brethren #008" is also printed on the can, along with a friendly and northern “Ey up!” So enough about the can which could take slow readers a long time to get through. Just drink the beer, becauses it's good. In fact, drinking it is like walking through the pines, through the pines, where the sun never shines...along with a zing of something tropical. Definitely worthwhile. Save the can for later, if you want.New World IPA (6.2% ABV -- reviewed 4 May 2020)
        `
      • This is a New England IPA brewed with Citra, Mosaic, and Simcoe hops. And there’s something really interesting about the taste, something surprisingly nostalgic...that’s, um, quite...something! It smells great as it’s poured out of the can, like a fragrant waterfall. It’s like an ice floe through a field with a touch of sage blossom and juniper leaves, and a cat’s wet chest where it’s been bathing itself. In other words, well, just use your imagination. This is a very imaginative beer.Scafell (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
        `
      • I bought this can because of the name, obviously, and also the fact that it says “Twist Edition”, whatever that means. But there was no mention of what hops were used, only the Brethren #094, Pietro Maltinti, who brewed it. But wow, it’s certainly coconutty! It’s quite fun at first; but by the end it becomes a bit too over-the-top coconutty. Now, I love coconut myself, but there is a limit.Shipwrecked Transient Piña Colada IPA (7.0% ABV -- reviewed 12 February 2024)

      Oakham Ales, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire:

      `
      • This beer was brewed for sale in Marks & Spencer. Not long ago, as I was dashing through my local M&S before work, I noticed they had a display of little bottles of Lagunitas IPA, one of my favourite California beers. As I was headed for work I didn't buy any, but I really should have. Anyway, weeks later I finally stopped in on my way home and checked out their beer selection. This time they sadly had no more Lagunitas, but I decided to try this beer. I was surprised by the long list of ingredients which included glucose syrup, but Andrew thought that was reasonable, and he liked the taste. I thought it was okay for a supermarket product, although I have to admit it's actually brewed by the Oakham Brewery. It was hoppy with tropical fruit and citrus, so you can't really complain about it.Double Hopped Citra IPA (4.8% ABV -- reviewed 22 November 2016)
      • This was my Beer of Day 8 of the Covid-19 Lockdown. It's brewed with Amarillo, Cascade, Centennial, and Chinook hops grown in the Yakima Valley. I haven’t had an Oakham beer for years. It’s clean and sparky and quite pleasant, a nice reward for walking all over trying to get my once-daily exercise plus shopping. As I got a late start this afternoon, I did pass the occasional friend, one out walking, one running his two little dogs, and a legendary sax-playing friend I’d never seen walking in his stocking cap just like everybody else. I threw a quick long-distance chat to the dog walker, but we didn’t dawdle at all, just in case the Exercise Police are monitoring this. Yep, this beer is definitely Sparky, like a friendly animated electrical spark. I won’t pass it by if I see it again on the shelf.Inferno Blonde Ale (4.4% ABV -- reviewed 4 May 2020)

      Off Peak Brewing, Bakewell, Derbyshire:

      `
      • This is a hazy DDH IPA, brewed with Cascade, Comet, and Ekuanot hops and described as “Papaya, Mango, Grapefruit”. It’s an interesting hopzy brew, with a hint of sweet character to the bouquet of hops, like a bunch of lilies and orchids in a gorgeous vase.But What Is Normal? (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
        `
      • Presented in another indecipherable can, this hazy beer is brewed with Cascade, El Dorado, Pacifica, and Huell Melon hops. What a unique fruity hops character it has, and it’s definitely another new taste for me. Is it the Pacifica hops? Are they from Pacifica, located down the California coast from San Francisco? Or are the hops grown on the Chatsworth Estate in Derbyshire, miles away from any ocean? After a mildly stressful day, after everything fortunately was sorted out, this brew was a very pleasant reward.You Have Been Disconnected (7.1% ABV -- reviewed 20 July 2021)

      Orkney Brewery, Stromness, Orkney, Scotland:

      `
      • Now this is a proper dark malty beer, with a good chocolaty head, a chocolaty character, and complicated flavours. This is a dark beer to make you think. If you like malty stouts, definitely try this one.Dragons Head (4.0% ABV -- reviewed 12 August 2007)
      • This beer tastes like hoppy toasted grapefruit -- if you could toast a grapefruit like a piece of bread, that is. It was quite nice and cooling, welcomely cooling, even on such a suddenly brisk and windy day. It brought to mind a lovely crunchy ripply orange scarf wrapped around my neck, which I would have appreciated just then.Northern Light (3.8% ABV -- reviewed 12 August 2007)
      • This beer distinctly says "toast": not as in "Cheers" but as in "buttered wholemeal nutty toast".Raven (3.8% ABV -- reviewed 12 August 2007)
      • This is definitely a barley wine, with a touch of coke syrup -- although this impression comes from my childhood when I still liked Coca-Cola. My friend Ali claims it tastes like Bass No. 1, which was the very first barley wine to be mass produced. Please go with Ali's description, because it was his beer and I wouldn't want to see anybody do something horrible like mix it with rum. It's very attractive from the top view into the glass as well.Skull Splitter (8.5% ABV -- reviewed 12 August 2007)

      Ossett Brewery, Ossett, West Yorkshire:

      `
      • Andrew and I shared a bottle of this beer. The description on the bottle was promising: "Pale and Well Hopped" with a graphic of the Cascades, as Cascade hops is used. This beer does indeed has a grapefruity hoppiness, but sadly it's a bit lacking in character and would taste much nicer if it were bottle-conditioned -- so we felt as if we were standing on a drumlin rather than a mountain peak. So it's close...but no cigar.Excelsior (5.2% ABV -- reviewed 28 August 2011

      Peak Ales, Chatsworth, Bakewell, Derbyshire:

      `
      • On Day 7 of the Covid-19 Lockdown, I decided to try this bottle which was described as “a bold, hoppy IPA with a modern citrus twist”. I needed a pint’s worth of something strong this evening, after an exhausting day spent walking three miles with two risky stops, one for a couple of beers and one to pick up a prescription. The visit to the chemist ended up taking forty minutes from queueing outside to procuring the correct prescription inside (which is always a challenge), which I had dropped in over a week earlier. Such is Life in the Covid-19 Era. I didn’t get anything else done today, specifically of the creative or enjoyable nature, so I really wanted this beer. There is nothing unique about it, but it’s a good traditional hoppy gold ale.Peak IPA (6.0% ABV -- reviewed 4 May 2020)

      Pentrick Brewing Company, Ripley, Derbyshire:

      `
      • Brewed with Mosaic, Simcoe, and Idaho Gem hops, this is hazy like a blizzard in the pines and just a really enjoyable IPA, obviously with those great hops. I drank it while I was on our weekly Zoom pub group quiz, this time celebrating both my birthday the following day and the exit of Donald Trump. So anything was going to taste good at that point.Blizzard in the Pines IPA (7.0% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)

      Pivovarna Pelicon, Ajdovščina, Slovenia:

      `
      • This beer is fruity, hoppy, and crisp, very appropriate for the crisp and clear day on which I drank it. There was even a bit of snow, mostly melted by now but some left on the ground, and plenty of ice to reflect the clear sky above. But that sky made me very happy, as there was no wet stuff falling down and getting me soaked and shivering. This beer is most definitely reflecting fruit, specifically kumquats and grapefruit. The hops include Styrian Dragon, Styrian Fox, Nelson Sauvin, and Riwaka, and there is also Kolsch yeast and an extra dose of the beta-glucosidase enzyme. a what does the title refer to? Reflections on a Floating World (6.0% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Yeastie Boys, Wellington, New Zealand -- reviewed 26 April 2021)

      Pizza Port Brewing Company, Carlsbad, California:

      `
      • Eileen, Jeff, and I all had cans of this to accompany our delicious nouveau Indian meal at Badmaash in Los Angeles. Brewed with Chinook, CTZ, Cascade, Centennial, Citra, & Simcoe hops, this has that wonderful citrus and pine character to it, and it really accentuated our gorgeous barramundi. It was named after a special surfing location, which is kind of cool, since all three of us used to live near each other close to the beach.Swami's IPA (6.8% ABV -- reviewed 25 July 2023)

      Polly's Brew Company, Mold, Flintshire, Wales:

      `
      • Brewed with Citra, Equanot, Mosaic, and Simcoe hops, as well as Extra Pale, Dextrin, Oats, and Wheat malts, and London Ale 3 yeast, this is intense. Wow. I could really taste the alcohol. This can was recommended by a man at the Walkley Beer Company with whom I've chatted several times about super-hoppy beers. I'm getting the impression he leans towards the heavy-alcohol superhopped beers. After a few gulps of this I realised I was finding it a bit too overpowered in ABV for me to fully appreciate each of those hops. I was afraid this was going to make me fall asleep early, slightly nauseated. I just couldn't drink it. I wasn't enjoying it. Sometimes you just gotta give up.Circadian Rhythm Double IPA (8.0% ABV -- reviewed 23 November 2020)
      • ack in late December I took this to my friend Olly’s pre-New Year’s soiree. It was very nice and hoppy, as I recall, a good start for a few other drinks in the evening.Erko Pale Ale (5.2% ABV -- reviewed 12 February 2024)
        `
      • Brewed with Citra, Equanot, Mosaic, and Simcoe hops, as well as Extra Pale, Dextrin, Oats, and Wheat malts, and London Ale 3 yeast, this is intense. Wow. I could really taste the alcohol. This can was recommended by a man at the Walkley Beer Company with whom I've chatted several times about super-hoppy beers. I'm getting the impression he leans towards the heavy-alcohol superhopped beers. After a few gulps of this I realised I was finding it a bit too overpowered in ABV for me to fully appreciate each of those hops. I was afraid this was going to make me fall asleep early, slightly nauseated. I just couldn't drink it. I wasn't enjoying it. Sometimes you just gotta give up.Repeat Reform IPA (8.0% ABV -- reviewed 19 November 2023)
        `
      • This IPA with Nelson Sauvin and Strata hops is described by the brewery as “fruit, fruit, dank, and even more fruit”, with the tasting notes described as offering gooseberry, peach, lime, passionfruit, mango, and thick marijuana smoke. Yep, that’s precisely what I needed on this very cold day and during this mildly catastrophic week, having lost a glove and the kitchen floor having flooded. All I can say is Dank You, Polly!Wake & Return (6.1% ABV -- reviewed 19 November 2023)

      Pomona Island Brew Company, Salford, Greater Manchester:

      • This beer features Victoria Secret, Enigma, and Motueka hops andis described as tasting of passionfruit, lime, pineapple, and melon. The can is a surprisingly pleasing colour combination of milk chocolate brown with thin black geometrics. This is another cool cloudy hoppy splash to brighten up the frigid winter day. Present Shoop (6.4% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Salt Beer Factory, Shipton, West Yorkshire -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
        `
      • This West Coast IPA is a collaboration with Burnt Mill Brewing of Ipswich, Suffolk. A riffle is a reach of stream where shallow fast-moving water is broken by rocks and boulders. Riffles are common in both Derbyshire and Suffolk, so that inspired the name. With my first sip I got a definite Wow! Strong! Bitter! I was swung into a boulder in a torrential rainstorm, which I actually had experienced earlier when I got off the bus to walk the rest of the way to work, and I ended up completely drenched. In fact my clothes were still wet while I was enjoying this beer. Apparently the city of Sheffield has decided that a walking-cycling City Centre is great for everyone, even people who can’t walk, and it completely disregards the typical Sheffield weather. So of course the bus routes make no sense at all for people actually needed to get from Point A to Point B. Oh well, it matches the UK politics of the era.Salice (5.2% ABV -- a collaboration with Thornbridge Brewery of Bakewell, Derbyshire -- reviewed 20 December 2022)
      • Yes, Me! Naturally I was attracted by this can. It’s a very simple beige with brown letters, and there’s a drawing of a horse looking out (or into) a window. It’s double dry hopped, and the hops are Cryo Talus, Nelson Sauvin, and Enigma. So hey, yes, me! Yes! So I may as well stop admiring the can and open it. Yes You, Hey, Yes You, Hey is pleasant, smoothly hoppy, and hazily blonde, like a blonde horse. It was a cold, cold work day when I opened this, and it was a welcome homecoming. There seemed to be a hint of hay (or Hey) in the aura. So is that why the long face? Coincidentally, for the past two weeks I’ve been going through some old sketches and cartoons I drew years ago and constantly running into references to Mister Ed, the talking horse from my childhood. So is there some sort of psychic connection?Yes You, Hey, Yes You, Hey Pale (5.6% ABV -- reviewed 20 December 2022)

      Preset, Tournefeuille, France:

      `
      • When I was in Bordeaux last month I bought this at a bottle shop, attracted instantly by the blue and yellow can with ERROR codes written all over it, and also by the fact that it was brewed with Sabro, Mosaic, and Citra hops. The brewer, Preset, is actually a microbrasserie in Tournefeuille, which is a commune in the Haute-Garonne department, not far from Bordeaux, and also a suburb of Toulouse. I drank this can back in my hotel room, and it was quite good, with a pineapple and coconut character. Wow, yes. It was really fruity in a powerful way. It was like a Sequoia-sized banana tree about to crash-land on my head. I mean, why did I get banana from coconut-pineapple? I mean, they do all go together, and quite nicely, so I wasn’t going to complain.PANIC DDH NEIPA (6.6% ABV -- reviewed 18 March 2024)

        Pressure Drop Brewing Company, London:

        `
        • This is yet another New England IPA. I was attracted to the name of the beer as well as the brewery name, as it makes me think of one of my favourite ska tunes. The name of the beer comes from a Henry David Thoreau quote, “Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake, which is quite a beautiful thought, especially if you’re happily skanking away. Brewed with Mosaic and Idaho 7 hops, this beer has really pleased me because over the top of the fruitiness is a wallop of pine, which is a flavour bouquet I really like. I feel as though I’m sitting in the middle of a Christmas tree farm. What a pleasant smell and taste. I am indeed awake in a dream. In Dreams (5.6% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)

        Redwillow Brewery, Maccclesfield, Cheshire:

        `
        • A New England IPA, this comes in a purple and lavender can and is pleasantly hoppy and aromatic. Brewed with Mosaic, Citra, and Simcoe hops and named intriguingly, this is my Christmas Eve drink, the evening before a day of nothingness. Wow, but it’s a lot of fun.Perceptionless (6.6% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)

        Frederic Robinsons Ltd, Stockport, Greater Manchester:

        `
        • Although this tastes strongly of fuggles hops, it probably has some Citra as well, because the bottle, along with all the talk about the protection of beards, mention citrus. There is a large drawing on the label of a man with a hat, shades, a beard, and a handlebar moustache, with hops buds intertwined in his beard. The label states boldly that not everyone suits a beard. Is that a message for women like me? So Andrew has a beard. My beer-loving friend Mike has a beard, and beer-loving Trevor had a beard. But I don't. So am I not allowed to drink this beer? At least I was drinking it in the privacy of my own home...Beardo (6.0% ABV -- reviewed 6 May 2017)
          `
        • Described as “light gold, crisp, lush fruity hops character, packed with flavour,” this beer seems a bit traditional in taste. But for a traditional British beer it’s got a nice hoppy zip. This was a cap to the first warm and sunny day we’ve had in this surreal Covid-19-lockdown spring. As I walked down the hill to a supermarket I passed a performer set up with PA and amp on her back deck, playing guitar and singing, with her next-door neighbour (safely two metres away) singing backup. What a great idea! From the supermarket I walked back through Bole Hill, exploring a new path I hadn’t noticed before. I’m sorry, it was there, no one else was around, and it only took me an extra ten minutes, and I was walking at full speed the entire way. One has to keep their health and sanity during this crisis.Mash Out Pale Ale (4.5% ABV -- reviewed 4 May 2020)
          `
        • This tropical beer comes in a bottle. I certainly wasn’t expecting what I got with my first taste. It's tropical, yes, but like a champagne cocktail with mixed tropical fruit. It definitely got my mojo working, for a short time. But I eventually realised it’s too fruity-punchy-bubbly. Sorry, but a m&iavute; no me gusta.Mojo (5.5% ABV -- reviewed 6 June 2020)
          `
        • This beer was created by the brewery for the Co-Op chain of supermarkets. When I stopped into my local Co-Op to grab a couple of items, I couldn't help noticing it on the shelf, especially as it was relatively cheap. So I decided to try a bottle. Described as having a triple hopping of "hops including Goldings, Cascade, Chinook, and Bramley Cross" it's difficult to determine just how many hops are in this. But it's surprisingly not bad. The Goldings definitely stands out, and Andrew said it suggests a Southern beer.Triple Hop (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 6 May 2017)

        Rogue Ales, Newport, Oregon:

        `
        • The can describes the rumours in the woods on Mt St Helens of sightings of the mysterious Batsquatch. As Kim and I gathered on his back patio to drink a couple of cans of this, I made sure I wore my Sasquatch earrings for the occasion. The taste is described as tropical, malt, citrus, bitter, and pine, and it's definitely tropical and pine. The hops are Mosaic, El Dorado, and Belma, so no wonder I like it.Batsquatch Hazy IPA (6.7% ABV -- reviewed 25 July 2023)

        Ruddles Brewery, Abington, Oxfordshire:

        `
        • Now this is a proper dark malty beer, with a good chocolaty head, a chocolaty character, and complicated flavours. This is a dark beer to make you think. If you like malty stouts, definitely try this one.Ruddles County Classic English Country Ale (4.7% ABV -- reviewed 1 November 1999)

        Rudgate Brewery, York, North Yorkshire:

        `
        • On a recent cold evening I tried another of my birthday bottles from January. This is deeply rich dark brown in colour and surprisingly dry without that typical malt taste, so it's surprisingly drinkable. It has lovely aroma, slightly vanilla with the darkest bitterest unsweet chocolate essence. This is really nice! I like it! The only objection I had was that it isn't bottle-conditioned so it's quite gassy.York Chocolate Stout (5.0% ABV -- reviewed 30 April 2013)

        Runaway Brewery, New Mills, Derbyshire:

        `
        • Because I love the band suggested by this beer, naturally I had to try it. Wow! This beer delivers full-fat flavour. It’s a bottle-conditioned vegan ale, zesty and of a tawny copper colour, with "West Coast Old-School" written on the label. It reminds Andrew of Adnams Broadside, but I can taste the West Coast hops coming through. It’s definitely complicated. I really needed it on this particular day, as we were sitting in the chaos of our torn-up kitchen looking forward to our yummy Lebanese takeaway.Social Distortion (5.8% ABV -- reviewed 18 May 2019)

        Salt Beer Factory, Saltaire, West Yorkshire:

        • Another American pale ale, this beer takes its name not from a collision, a stock market drop, a computer failure, or a group of rhinoceroses, but from a rough fabric made of undyed yarns. It’s quite a lovely hoppy brew with that nice balance of fruit and pine. Perhaps the reason I love those flavours is because I grew up in Southern California, full of orange groves and other fruit crops, and then moved to the Evergreen State in the Pacific Northwest, with all those pine trees. I do like nature. And I do like hoppy beers.Crash (5.0% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
        • This beer features Victoria Secret, Enigma, and Motueka hops andis described as tasting of passionfruit, lime, pineapple, and melon. The can is a surprisingly pleasing colour combination of milk chocolate brown with thin black geometrics. This is another cool cloudy hoppy splash to brighten up the frigid winter day. Present Shoop (6.4% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Pomona Brew Company, Salford, Greater Manchester -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
        • This is a DOH NEIPA. I understand the New England IPA, and the Double Hopped, but the O? Oh, I get it, it’s Double Dry Hopped. Anyway, that’s all the information there is on the can, along with lots of bold graffiti-style colours and the word SALT in the middle, which at first confused me. This is another beer brewed with cryo hops, specifically Cryo Citra and Cryo Simcoe, then dry-hopped with Idaho 7 and Simcoe, and more of that London Fog yeast. I’m sipping this as I’m finishing reading a present-day dystopian novel, Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam. Considering we’re living in a hopefully only temporary pandemic-caused dystopia, I guess I decided to escape into something slightly more dystopian. I know how to have a good time, and Ripe Times seems to work well with it.Ripe Times (6.5% ABV -- Brewed in collaboration with Magic Rock Brewery, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
          `
        • )This is a hazy pale brewed with an exciting partnership of Sabro, Citra, Ekuanot, Chinook, and Centennial hops. Each sip emanates a zingy velvety hops throb with slightly mango-coconut overtones. I’m not really sure where the name has come from, because I know Tupelo as the town in Mississippi where Elvis Presley was born, and also as the source of the excellent Tupelo honey. I suppose I could take a can of this with me to a park and sip it while singing to the bees and gyrating my pelvis. But as it’s raining outside I think I’ll just drink it while lounging on the couch with my book. Probably a wiser decision.Tupelo (5.5% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Thornbridge Brewing, Derbyshire -- reviewed 23 November 2020)

        Salty Walrus Brewing, Bakersfield, California:

        `
        • After having two strong pints at a pub, Kim and I returned to the house and shared a can of this. It's got a nice taste suggestive of grapefruit and pine resin, which is always a winning combination. The name of the brewery made me wonder if there are any walruses around the Kern River. I'll have to go check that out some day.West Coast Walrus (7.0% ABV -- reviewed 25 July 2023)

        Saltaire Brewery, Shipley, West Yorkshire:

        `
        • Last month we shared a bottle of this beer which, according to the label, is made with Czech Saaz hops, pearl and caramel malts, and torrefied wheat. (When my spell checker insisted torrefied should instead be terrified, I looked up the definition and learned that torrefied wheat is wheat that has been heat treated to break the cellular structure. Whereas terrified wheat is wheat that has been traumatised -- perhaps even torrefied.) This is a pleasant pale ale, although it's not bottled conditioned so it may be somewhat burpy. It's comfortingly easy to drink with that modern spicy hops backdrop. It's a friendly blonde, not terribly witty but it gets all the jokes which is important.Saltaire Blonde (4.0% ABV -- reviewed 15 January 2013)
        • I purchased a bottle of this beer at Marks & Spencer on my way home from work one day. It's described as American style, with pale and crystal malts, torrefied wheat, and Cascade, Magnum, Summit, and Galena hops. It's also described as a full bodied pale (although we thought it was rather tawny in colour), with creamy caramel and malt flavours and intense resin, citrus and grapefruit hops flavours. I don't mean to be lazy here, but the label described it perfectly. It's a really good beer! And Andrew loves it as well. We'd love to find it on cask somewhere, so I'll keep my eye out for it. Maybe both eyes. Perhaps I'll get Andrew to help and then we'll have four eyes out. After a thoroughly boring and maddening day at work suffering from the end of a cold, this was definitely manna from heaven.Stateside IPA (6.0% ABV -- reviewed 22 November 2016)

        Seven Bro7ers Brewing Company, Salford, Greater Manchester:

        `
        • A hazy, dry-hopped beer, this is pretty damn good, with my style of hoppiness and a good tropical-fruit character. I drank this while having a couple of pints on HouseParty with my friends Olly and Ali. Sadly, the only place I’ve ever seen it on sale is at a ridiculously overpriced off-license, so this will probably be the last can of this I see, unless somebody else starts stocking it.Juicy IPA (6.0% ABV -- reviewed 6 June 2020)

        Shepherd Neame, Faversham, Kent:

        `
        • This is very much like a traditional IPA. Very good, but a tad melancholic, like a tragic movie star who is a truly fine actor but nevertheless has faced many disappointments in life. But who am I kidding -- this could easily be an Oscar winner.1698 Celebration Ale (6.5% ABV -- reviewed April 1999)
        • What else can I say about Bishop's Finger? This is a FINE beer! Fine! Fine! Truly fine! Yes! A real beer in a bottle! Yes! YES! This is a DAMN FINE BEER!!!!! Need I say more?Bishop's Finger Kentish Strong Ale (5.4% ABV -- reviewed April 1999)
        • This beer is the colour of sunset over the sea -- the North Sea, obviously. It tastes of very tangy Target hops which hit the tongue like a bulls-eye. Whitstable, which is famous for its oysters and its fish market, reminds me of my time in Folkestone and makes me think of cockles, winkles, whelks, queenies, and other odd Southerners...Whitstable Bay Organic Ale (4.5% ABV -- reviewed 1 January 2011)

        Shiny Brewing Company, Derby, Derbyshire:

        `
        • Brewed with Citra, Mosaic, Talus, and Loral, this was my second can for Olly’s soiree, and whomp! That lovely hops combination swirled around on my tongue and made me happy! Yes! I wish I’d brought another couple of cans of this. The can proudly describes this as follows: "a celestial spectacle! Beams of resin and pine. A floral, citrus glow. Loral and Talus twinkle together above waves of Citra and Mosaic. Let's be Laser Chasers." So I don’t really have to say any more than that.Laser Chasers DDH Pale (5.5% ABV -- reviewed 12 February 2024)
          `
        • Brewed with Sabro, Bru-1, and Motueka hops, this was very tropical and appropriate for the warm muggy day on which I drank it. The swirly colourful design on the can made me almost want to try to find a shower curtain like that. Or better still, a nice shower with a proper half-glass door with that pattern, because I prefer more modern showers. Or in the case of my sibling group’s main shower, no doors at all, only walls. Ok, dream house note...LIT DDH Pale (5.0% ABV -- reviewed 15 October 2023)

        Shipyard Brewing Company, Portland, Maine:

        `
        • This deep gold brew is actually quite a pleasantly drinkable beer. It’s not overly hoppy or capable of sending one into unexplored realms, but it’s just a good traditional American craft beer with a grapefruit hoppiness. I can see the sailing ships pulling out of the harbour...actually I’ve never been to Maine, much less to Portland, Maine, so I’m not sure if this image is accurate. But I have been to Portland, Oregon plenty of times, and I even rode on a sternwheeler down the Columbia River. I realise that’s a slightly different image, but at least it was a boat...Shipyard American IPA (5.0% ABV -- reviewed 6 June 2020)

        Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, Chico, California:

        `
        • As described on the can, this is "seriously hoppy". It's also a very good example of the dank side. On my recent trip to California, as we sat out on the back patio in Bakersfield in the dark, my unofficial brother Kim instantly fell in love with the whole idea of dank. On future visits I will definitely have to seek out dankness in the beers we buy. That's no problem for me, because I'm already a fan.Dankful IPA (7.4% ABV -- reviewed 4 July 2022)
          `
        • I haven’t tasted anything for years from this old classic California brewery. When I lived in Seattle I used to enjoy the brewery’s Celebration Ale, but that’s been years now. So when I spotted this can I decided to see what it was like. It’s surprisingly hoppy, with oo-ee hops bouncing out of the can at the first sip. It’s buzzily zoomphy! Sorry, I’m running out of good alliterations for what all the different hops characters do to my tongue and senses. I suppose it’s from lockdown fatigue.Hazy Little Thing IPA (4.6% ABV -- reviewed 6 June 2020)
          `
        • As it’s getting warm -- in relation to Yorkshire weather, that is -- I chilled a can of this first in the fridge. Then I sat on the back step in the sun, after an exhausting walk to the shops in a haze where I inadvertently kept doing all the wrong social-distancing things while a large white tissue of which I was completely unaware waved unattractively at all the passersby from the back pocket of my jeans. Meanwhile there is a pipe under our combi boiler that is suddenly dripping, and it’s the end of Friday. Yes, I felt humiliated and stressed out and worried and I definitely needed a lift. This is a refreshing citrussy drop from my home state, so that helped a bit.California IPA (4.2% ABV -- reviewed 6 June 2020)
          `
        • This is another beer that comes in a 12-ounce American can, which just makes you feel like you enjoy that little bit more. It’s brewed with Magnum hops and lupulin dust, which I think are two great ideas. I loved the lupulin dust, having first experienced that sensation in the Bay Area only a few years ago. The beer was gorgeous and somehow suited the surprisingly frigid Arctic April day. Hop Bullet Double IPA (8.0% ABV -- reviewed 20 July 2021)
          `
        • This is a nice, evenly balanced, drinkable beer, and it's in a bottle, no less. It's dry hopped with the brewery's patented Hop Torpedo. Citra, Crystal, and Magnum hops, and caramelised and Two-Row Pale malts. This was brewed using Sierra Nevada's Hop Torpedo device, which was designed to maximise the flavour and aroma extracted from whole-cone hops. It definitely does the job.Torpedo Extra IPA (7.2% ABV -- reviewed 25 July 2023)
          `
        • According to the can, this classic Pacific Coast brewery is “family owned, operated, and argued over”. And it’s a proper 12-ounce American can as well, just like the cans and bottles I buy when I’m visiting the US. This tropical IPA imports an earthy jolt of pale light hops. It’s a gentle torpedo, an easy-to-drink nuclear weapon.Tropical Torpedo (6.0% ABV -- reviewed 20 July 2021)
          `
        • I finally had the opportunity to try this bottle of beer I've had for awhile. It's hoppy and very flavourful, a welcome drop after the very long hectic day I had just experienced. I could definitely detect tropical fruit -- perhaps pineapple and mango -- with plenty of hops. It was an October sunset enjoyed on a dark rainy November day. To paraphrase FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, it's damn fine pint of beer.Twin Peaks (5.0% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Thornbridge Brewing, Bakewell, Derbyshire -- reviewed 15 November 2014)

        Signature Brew, Leyton, Greater London:

        `
        • Signature Brew is known for its collaborative beers and brewing with musicians. It was started in 2015 by musicians and bands. This is a nice easy IPA, good for relieving my sleepless stressed grieving soul. It’s just a basically nice IPA, sort of undemandingly drinkable, like Farmers Blonde by Bradfield Brewery. Backstage IPA (5.6% ABV -- reviewed 6 June 2020)

        Spire Brewery, Chesterfield, Derbyshire:

        `
        • This is a good crispy hoppy quaff that stimulates the Hops part of the palate. Does hops stimulate the mind? I think it does. Along with oily fish and gingko biloba, hops is a brain tonic. (If used in moderation, of course; otherwise expect a good deal of creative twaddle.)Land of Hop and Glory (4.5% ABV -- reviewed 24 January 2010)

        St Austell Brewery, St Austell, Cornwall:

        `
        • Recently we shared a bottle of this super-hopped perk-up to a tired and down sort of day. It's brewed with Chinook, Cascade, and Willamette hops, the Willamette making me think of my mother's home town of Seaside, Oregon, which is a long way from Sheffield. This definitely perked me up and lifted me out of my exhausted and unsociable funk.Proper Job (5.5% ABV -- reviewed 4 April 2015)

        Stone Brewing Company, Escondido, California:

        `
        • This beer is hopped with Columbus, Calypso, Lemondrop, and El Dorado, so these exciting hops lend a satisfying hoppy citrus reward in a glass. It's quite golden in colour, and the lemondrop hops, which I've only had once before, are from Washington State. This is lovely, so it's a very appropriate name.Delicious IPA (7.7% ABV -- reviewed 25 July 2023)
          `
        • Brewed with Ahtanum, Amarillo, Cascade, Chinook, Citra, Crystal, Magnum, Sterling, and Hopsteiner 06300 hops, with peach, citrus, melon flavours, this beer will supposedly go well with stuffed poblano peppers, jerk chicken, ceviche, Cajun shrimp, chips and salsa, grilled salmon. The can says it’s brewed in the US rather than Berlin, where the recent can of Stone IPA was brewed. It’s quite nice, actually, as a starter can for the weekly local friends’ pub quiz, which I was a bit startled to win this week thanks to a ridiculously simple tie-breaker question aimed at Americans rather than Brits. Anyway, I seem to nearly always go to IPA when I want a beer, so following this beer’s instructions is always quite easy for me.Go To IPA (4.7% ABV -- reviewed 6 June 2020)
          `
        • This is described as a San Diego Pale Ale. The 12-ounce can promises a “rippin’ swell of juicy hops”, and with one sip I’m suddenly projected back in Northern San Diego County, back when none of this Covid-19 shite existed, or else far into the future when Covid-19 is only a nightmarish memory with which to horrify the kiddies. This is a truly rippin’ very tropical beer. The impressive hops list includes Cascade, Galaxy, Hallertauer Blanc, Hüll Melon, and Mandarina Bavaria hops from the US West Coast, Australia, and Germany. Wow. It is truly a ripper. Hang ten!Ripper (5.7% ABV -- reviewed 27 August 2020)
          `
        • This is brewed with Lemon Drop, Centennial, and Cascade hops, which are all hops I really like. This is a cloudy beer. It's nice: hoppy with a dryness on the tongue. Considering the massive downpour of rain I had just managed to avoid on my way home from work, the dryness was welcome.Scorpion Bowl IPA (7.5% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Abbeydale Brewing, Sheffield -- reviewed 25 November 2018)
        • Brewed at Stone's Berlin brewery, this beer's can announces that it's the IPA “that launched generations of hop fanatics.” I can’t really dispute that, at least on the Pacific Coast of America. I have to admit that in the 21st century I have bought many sixpacks of Stone IPA from the Trader Joe’s in Long Beach whenever I’ve been visiting my mother. Brewed with Magnum, Centennial, and Mosaic hops, this features a good mix of citrus and pine flavours. As I sipped this satisfying brew I found myself pining (sorry) away for one of the many beer gardens in Stoneyland, my nickname for the massive Stone Brewing Company in Escondido, California. When I examined the can further, though, I discovered that this particular batch was brewed in Berlin. What a surprise, and yet another good reason to visit Berlin whenever we can all do such things like travelling beyond our neighbourhoods again. According to Stone’s website, Stone IPA is supposed to go well with stuffed poblanos, a Caesar salad, spicy Thai salmon, Pecorino cheese as an after, and a Macanudo cigar. Okay, I’d better get on it and place my order now. And while we wait for our excellent meal, served al fresco, we can enjoy this great classic of a hoppy IPA. Hey, we can dream, can’t we? At least the beer is real...Stone IPA (6.9% ABV -- reviewed 4 May 2020)

        Sure Shot Brewing Company, Manchester:

        `
        • Being a lifelong toy collector I couldn’t resist this can the moment I saw it. Besides having an intriguing name, there is all sorts of stuff written on the can if you stop to study it. First of all, under the name of the beer is a balloon that says “Yello! Mr Burns’ office!” plunging the drinker right into an episode of “The Simpsons”. But then the writing continued: “Be a real hot rod mama! With NE drag race action! “You have 30 MINUTES to move your cube!” The accompanying graphics feature a toy with a racing car and a crane, and lots of little plastic things that all do something!! I love these kinds of toys, especially when they have to do with cars. Oh look, there’s more: “You have 30 minutes to move your car. You have 10 minutes…your car has been impounded. Your car has been crushed into a cue.” This is right up my current stress-level alley!
          
          But I do go on sometimes: what clinched the sale was the mention of Nelson Sauvin, T90, Mosaic, Cryo, and BBC hops. Described as fruity with earthy bitterness, it also suggests that this DDH IPA is best paired with steamed toast and a dodo egg. Oh my, what fun this is to drink for a hops monster lover like myself, and what more fun it would be to drink it while actually playing with the described toy. Oops, out of time--CRUNCH! Oh well, my first car, a 1966 VW Fastback, was a lemon anyway. Still, it’s so tragic for any gorgeous car to be melted down into a cube. The thought breaks my heart--not that I’m prejudiced against cubes or anything...Is It About My Cube? DDH IPA (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 12 February 2024)
          `
        • As I’m trying this beer in mid-December, before yet another lockdown, my hair is newly brightly-coloured, so I’m feeling relatively good. Christmas is looking extremely bleak and lonely, so why not break away and take a long, strong journey through hopfields of the world? This beer is brewed with Galaxy (for jetting around planets), Mosaic (bringing to mind the tile floors of Morocco), and Citra (ending with a tour through Southern California orchards). The idea of this appeals to me, as the only desire I have at the moment is to travel somewhere far away from where I am now. And my first sip brings a wh-wh-wh-WHOW! Yep, I can hear the crackle of the cocked barrel, the instant reloading, the Wham! Wham! Wham into my palate. This will bring out the neon turquoise, jade green, and purple in my hair, yessireebob!Sure Shot 15 Mile Round Trip Double IPA (8.0% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Vocation Brewing Company, Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire -- reviewed 26 April 2021)

        Swale Brewery, Sittingbourne, Kent:

        `
        • Naturally I couldn't resist trying an Old Dick. It's a Beauty of Hops 1997 silver medal award winner, but I'm afraid Old Dick came too soon! The opened bottle spewed forth foam, with a head like an ice cream float. It was slightly sour, otherwise tasteless like -- yes, like an old dick! (And don't ask me how I know; I'm only guessing! Okay?)Old Dick (5.2% ABV -- reviewed April 1999)

        Swannay Brewing Company, Birsay, Orkney, Scotland:

        `
        • This beer tastes like a rich floral bubble bath.Orkney Blast (6.0% ABV -- reviewed 12 August 2007)
        • This was very malty but a nicely bitter malt, like a brick red and olive green plaid as opposed to a magenta and blue plaid, which I think would taste a bit too treacly.St Magnus Ale (4.5% ABV -- reviewed 12 December 2007)

        Tartarus Beers, Leeds, West Yorkshire:

        • A collaboration with Bini Brew Co of Ilkley, West Yorkshire, this is brewed with oats and wheat, dry hopped with Eclipse, and there's a very appealing graphic of a cabbit on the can. Aha! I can taste those furry rabbit ears! I'm not sure why they're calling this a session beer at 5.2%. Oh well, whatever. A cabbit is, of course, a hybrid of a cat and rabbit, and supposedly it only exists in Japanese anime and manga. So what would a cabbit eat? Carroturbot? Crabgrass? Mackerelettuce? Anyway, this is a nice hoppy, furry brew, and it's very hazy. I suppose I'm getting used to anything I pour out of a can being hazy. But I do think the cat half of the hybrid would have enjoyed some finings, whereas the rabbit half can more easily hide in the vegan haze. I drank this can on the first warm and sunny day for weeks, but I spent most of the day at work in a cold and windowless room, so I missed most of the pleasure. But there's more of the same predicted for tomorrow, so I'm in a good mood.Cabbit Session IPA (5.2% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Bini Brew Co, Ilkley, West Yorkshire -- reviewed 4 September 2023)

        Teignworthy Brewery, Newton Abbot, Devon:

        `
        • This is a potent beer with a lovely bouquet. "Mmmm", says JC Goulden, "I detect barley with a hint of pomegranate and Brazil nut." Or is that loquat and hazelnut which are tickling my palate? I can't quite place it...at least there are no seeds or shells in the bottom of the bottle.Maltster's Ale (5.0% ABV -- reviewed 31 May 2001)

        Temblor Brewing Company, Bakersfield, California:

        `
        • This was another four-pack I picked up at the brewery when I was visiting California. A New England hazy beer, it's brewed with Comet and Galaxy hops, and as I recall it was very good, fruity yet dank.Golden Empire Strikes Back IPA (7.5% ABV -- reviewed 4 July 2022)
          `
        • Dry hopped with Citra and Mandarina Bavaria hops, this is very happily drinkable. It suggests walking through downtown Bakersfield, past art deco buildings and Chinese bars, as opposed to the long, straight, suburban stretches of boulevard of which much of Bakersfield consists. And covering 151 square miles, I can say that Bakersfield has a hell of a lot of streets. Streets of Bakersfield IPA (7.0% ABV -- reviewed 25 July 2023)

        Thornbridge Brewery, Bakewell, Derbyshire:

        `
        • Brewed with Citra and Mosaic and in a yellow can with green and black and gold decorations, this is another very decently hoppy Thornbridge brew, the second in two days in a row. The can suggests grapefruit and melon flavours, orange and mango with hints of lime oil, and that this beer would be good with tacos al pastor. Heavily dry hopped, it's clear and sparkling in the glass, bright and cheerfully hoppy. Yes, it brightens up the all-day-rainy Bank Holiday Monday, with hopes that I don’t go mad with cabin fever and restless leg syndrome, and hopes of a future day of no rain, this beer actually has cheered me up. Goes great with the Palo Santo incense that is currently burning in our lounge while the rain pours down incessantly outside.Absideon IPA (6.6% ABV -- reviewed 20 July 2021)
          `
        • Brewed with Crystal, Simcoe, and Mosaic hops, this is pretty damn good and hoppy for a low-ABV beer. It’s hazy, with suggestions of pineapple and grapefruit, two tastes I really like. So of course I like it. And the purple can with its gold detailing goes well with my freshly coloured purple, green, and teal hair. It makes me want to say a simple “Zingity-zing-zing!” On the can it recommends drinking this with huevos rancheros, which sounds fine with me, because anything Mexican is fine with me, thank you very much!Astrid Juicy Pale (3.8% ABV -- reviewed 20 July 2021)
          `
        • This drinkable sour is named after the California town that used to be known as the Lemon Capital of the World because of its perfect citrus-growing climate. Chula Vista translates as “Cool View”, which makes sense. Brewed with fresh lemon and sea salt, it imparts a lemon-grapefruit tang. I had a pint of this awhile back at the Hallamshire, so I knew it was surprisingly drinkable, especially in the can. I enjoyed the crisp pale simplicity of it while sitting on my new grey sofa, with matching grey IKEA table and grey rattan box and magazine rack. Everything in the lounge is currently just waiting for a big RED! YELLOW! GREEN! BLUE! PURPLE! ORANGE! KAPOW! accent of some sort.Chula Vista Lemon & Sea Salt Sour (4.2% ABV -- reviewed 15 October 2023)
          `
        • This is a Southern Hemisphere Pale Ale brewed with Nectaron, Nelson Sauvin, Galaxy, Vic Secret, and Ella hops as well as low-colour Maris Otter and Oat malts and flaked torrefied wheat. It was a very nice home offering from Thornbridge, really satisfying. Of course, I do love Galaxy and Vic Secret, so it wasn’t surprising I found it so satisfying.Dotterel (5.0% ABV -- reviewed 15 November 2022)
          `
        • Described on the can as a “California Common Beer”, I have to say that as a native Californian who drinks beer I’ve never heard that particular term before. Brewed with HBC 522 hops and described as tasting like pine, mango, caramel and orange, it doesn’t really suggest what I might call Californian, from those first interesting microbrewing days of the 1980s or the exciting days of the hoppy/yeasty experimentation of today’s California. But I suppose, since the beer is called “Frisco” (which Californians, especially those in the Bay Area, never use to refer to San Francisco), it’s a bit of a misnomer in general. Stll, it’s an okay little pint with a mild flavour, not overly challenging, and a subtle orange-grove orange on the edge.Frisco (5.0% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
          `
        • This beer is brewed with quick-fermenting Kveik yeast strains from Hordaland, Norway, as well as Citra, Galaxy, and Mosaic hops, with the flavour notes promising pineapple, peach, grapefruit, lychee, and guava. I grabbed the can off the shelf because of the red label with black framing and bits of gold. It was a great colour combination that would also stir my magpie lust for collecting things red and black coloured. And the beer was nice as well. I’m a fan of Galaxy and Mosaic hops, and I do like the Northern European touch of Kveik yeast. The initial tasting notes I scribbled down were a bit hijacked by conversations about muddy trails on Bole Hill, crumbling plaster, the smog in Los Angeles and London, mudslides, and a description of sperm donation in the current book I’m reading, 10:04 by Ben Lerner, which provoked uncontrollable laughter. But fortunately this is a good beer for many subjects.Hordaland Kveik IPA (6.0% ABV -- reviewed 20 July 2021)
          `
        • One exhausting and impressively freezing day I came home from work and opened my bottle of this double IPA. Described on the bottle as having aromas of sweet tropical fruit and resinous pine, with Simcoe, Amarillo, and Mosaic hops, this is a classy beer, leaving a refined finish on the tongue like a good cognac. In fact, a good cigar would go great with this beer. Aw, heck, Huck! With a little research I couldn’t find out why it’s called Huck. Is it after Huckleberry Finn? Or after Jesus H Christ, whose middle name I used to think was Huckleberry? I suppose I’ll never know for sure.Huck (7.4% ABV -- reviewed 26 February 2017)
          `
        • I had a can of this beer the night before the second lockdown and the day after Election Day in the USA. It's a New England IPA with Galaxy, Nelson Sauvin, Citra, and Mosaic hops. The notes on the can suggest papaya, pineapple, stone fruit, and citrus, and it’s also suggested that it would go great with a Tangy Peach and Pecan Salad, if anybody happens to be making that for their tea. This beer is really quite nice, though. The fruitiness is tempered with a real WHOPPITY tanginess, which was perfect for the cold night on which I tried it. I can’t really picture drinking this on a warm humid picnic type of day; but living in Sheffield I don't have to worry about that much. I am, however, wondering why it was named Jamestown. I suppose it's referring to the early New England colony, and this is a New England style IPA. But I could be completely wrong.Jamestown (5.9% ABV -- reviewed 23 November 2020)
          `
        • The label on the bottle of this brew describes this as a "South Pacific Pale Ale". Since it was a hot steamy Indian Summer of a day, it seemed an appropriate beer for such weather. It's brewed with Nelson Sauvin hops from New Zealand. It was a shame that it's not bottle conditioned, because the burps and belches quickly swelling up, waiting to explode. But I could see Rudyard Kipling lying out under a coconut palm wearing a briefcloth with a tangy, hoppy piña colada in his hand, petting a tiger cub with the jungle behind them. Then I saw piles of pancakes -- oops, sorry: a bit of racist children's lit snuck in there when I wasn't looking. No, no, back to the tiger cub...Kipling (5.2% ABV -- reviewed 23 October 2011)
          `
        • This is surprisingly yummy and super-hopped with US hops. I would go back and buy this again. As I sipped I was reminded of the Pyramid Apricot Ale that my neighbour Lou Anna and her sister Celia used to drink back in Seattle. Our bottle bin was always full of a mixture of bottles of my Flagship Red Ale and their Pyramid Apricot Ale.Melba Peach IPA (5.2% ABV -- reviewed 30 December 2017)
        • This is really nice, with quite a strong taste, but it has a sort of an Abbeydale Deception aura about it. The hops are Citra, HBC 353, and Bru-1, with Maris Otter, Oat Malt, and Flaked Wheat malts. North Bridge (7.2% ABV -- a collaboration with North Brew Company, Sheepscar, Leeds, West Yorkshire -- reviewed 6 June 2020)
          `
        • It was a completely dead and deserted Saturday and I wanted and needed a strong beer, so I decided to try this one. The pretty blue can features a rampant lion facing a rampant bear, with their dukes up. (I’m assuming the lion stands for England and the bear for California.) The hops are listed as Idaho 7, Mosaic, Cashmere, El Dorado, and Simcoe, and the resulting character as Mango, Grapefruit, Tropical Fruit, Pine, and Chicken Wings. Huh? Oh sorry, that must be the food pairing suggestion. As soon as I popped open the can I realised that this is a really lusciously good beer. It is truly yummy! Even Andrew agreed instantly with me as I insisted he taste it. And happily I bought the can just down the road at a very local shop, so I can run back and buy some more. This is really a lovely brew, absolutely lovely. I suppose it’s those characters, the triad of tropical, grapefruit, and pine, that can turn out so perfect, and the melding of such an interesting collection of hops. I can’t say it enough, but this is absolutely lovely. I can’t really detect any chicken, though...Ponderosa West Coast IPA (6.7% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Firestone Walker, Paso Robles, California -- reviewed 27 August 2020)
          `
        • This pale ale was single-hopped with Idaho 7, and it elicited a yum! zippity doo dah, Iida-ho-ho-ho! from my palate. It suggested zingy tropical fruit with a definite base of strong black tea. It zipped and flourished all over my tongue like kudzu.Quiet Storm (5.5% ABV -- reviewed 15 November 2022)
          `
        • This West Coast IPA is a collaboration with Burnt Mill Brewing of Ipswich, Suffolk. A riffle is a reach of stream where shallow fast-moving water is broken by rocks and boulders. Riffles are common in both Derbyshire and Suffolk, so that inspired the name. With my first sip I got a definite Wow! Strong! Bitter! I was swung into a boulder in a torrential rainstorm, which I actually had experienced earlier when I got off the bus to walk the rest of the way to work, and I ended up completely drenched. In fact my clothes were still wet while I was enjoying this beer. Apparently the city of Sheffield has decided that a walking-cycling City Centre is great for everyone, even people who can’t walk, and it completely disregards the typical Sheffield weather. So of course the bus routes make no sense at all for people actually needed to get from Point A to Point B. Oh well, it matches the UK politics of the era.Salice (5.2% ABV -- a collaboration with Pomona Island Brewing of Salford, Greater Manchester -- reviewed 20 December 2022)
          `
        • This beer is the second collaboration with Brew York. The first collaboration led to the great Friday night that named this beer. A West Coast IPA with Centennial, Chinook, Simcoe, Columbus, and Equanot hops, this is apparently recommended with cedar planked salmon, which I’ll go for any day. The flavour is grapefruit and stone fruit, and it's perfect for another “killer hot” day (nah, it’s just like a typical Southern California summer day.) Yes, it's a very nice, drinkable hoppy brew, although I don’t think I’d drink it out at a barbecue or picnic in this heat with that ABV.Some Friday That (7.0% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Brew York, York, North Yorkshire -- reviewed 20 August 2022)
        • This passionfruit IPA is brewed with Mosaic and Nelson Sauvin hops. I drank a can of this at home on a ridiculous day when the rain would not stop and the car battery, after being parked for six days, was completely stone-dead. So it seemed like a good day for a can on the sofa. This beer is a bit sweet, though. I should have suspected that with the passionfruit suggestion, and my American childhood associations with super-sweet soft drinks like Hi C and Kool Aid. But I was hoping that, as it was an IPA with two hops I really like, the hops would temper the sweetness. But then there’s that high-alcohol as well. Oh well, it’s only a Three of Diamonds. It didn’t promise to be an Ace of Spades.Three of Diamonds (5.0% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Mikkeller Brewery Copenhagen, Denmark -- reviewed 14 December 2021)
        • I finally had the opportunity to try this bottle of beer I've had for awhile. It's hoppy and very flavourful, a welcome drop after the very long hectic day I had just experienced. I could definitely detect tropical fruit -- perhaps pineapple and mango -- with plenty of hops. It was an October sunset enjoyed on a dark rainy November day. To paraphrase FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, it's damn fine pint of beer.Twin Peaks (5.0% ABV -- reviewed 15 November 2014)
          `
        • On another postwork day I had a bottle of this beer. Brewed with Nelson Sauvin, Centennial, Sorachi Ace, and Ella hops and described as tasting like lemongrass and orange, I can say that those good dark punchy hops were like a warming tonic for the end of another freezing day.Valravn Imperial Black IPA (8.8% ABV -- reviewed 26 February 2017)
          `
        • On Day 3 of the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown, my beer pleasure was a can of this surprise. Whoa-hoh!! Jesus, it’s really something! I could never handle a high-ABV beer like this in a pub, as I don’t think I’d make it out the front door without falling flat on my face. This is brewed with Simcoe, Amarillo, and Mosaic hops. I doubt that my Unkletom in Sacramento, with whom I was having an overseas phone conversation, had any idea what alcoholic gustatory pleasure I was experiencing.Yelamu (7.4% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Magic Rock Brewery, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire -- reviewed 29 March 2020)

        Tiny Rebel Brewing Company, Newport, Wales:

        `
        • The pineapple and grapefruit taste is pretty strong, especially the pineapple. Woah, this is a truly bizarre beer. You can most definitely taste the pineapple juice. We drink pineapple juice ll the time with gin and tonic, but I think this is only the second pineapple beer I've ever had (the first being the Pineapple Sculpin' IPA at Ballast Point in Long Beach). If you can imagine hoppy pineapple...well, can you? It's actually quite an appropriate quaff for the suddenly warm, clear, sunny day, my second day in history sitting out in our back garden on the paving-stone deck against the back wall, giving me a new outlook on our house and the neighbourhood. So this new perspective on beer is quite appropriate.Pineapple Express IPA (6.2% ABV -- reviewed 6 June 2020)
          `
        • This features a nice tropical flavour of grapefruit and peach, and there's a drawing of a pineapple on the tin. It's not overly hoppy but it's quite refreshing. Also on the tin is a drawing of a drunk teddy bear with a black eye. I don't quite understand that...Tropicana Tropical IPA (5.5% ABV -- reviewed 22 April 2018)

        Tollgate Brewery, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Derbyshire:

        `
        • On this stressful Friday after being at work all afternoon, keeping up on my brother’s surgery in California, experiencing the first day of our return to the Covid-19 Tier system, where our area is in the highest tier, and the announcement of the rollout of the first vaccine, it’s been a whew kind of day, with a lot to take in. Where do I go? What do I think? What do I feel? The only thing I definitely know is that it’s time for a beer, and this bottle-conditioned amber beer is pleasant enough, both malty and hoppy. This would appeal to an IPA traditionalist, who likes their beers like they used to be, before all of the hybrid hops and experimentations.Spark IPA (6.0% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)

        Track Brewing Company, Manchester:

        `
        • This beer is brewed with a mixture of Galaxy, Citra, and Simcoe hops, with Super Pale, Wheat Oat, and Vienna malts. As I sat down to drink my can I was waiting for an important call on my mobile from my sister-in-law while being interrupted by a call on the landline from my uncle, while replying in a WhatsApp text to a good friend, while being stressed out about my mother’s condition after having broken her hip in California. And the beer? Oh yes, it was good, once I paid attention. I love Galaxy hops, anyway. I suppose I’m just an astronaut at heart.Half Dome Hazy IPA (5.2% ABV -- reviewed 4 May 2020)

        Trader Joe's Brewing Company, akaJosephsBrau, Monrovia, California:

        `
        • This is one of the cans Kim and I enjoyed at the Cat & Bell Pub, which was the name we gave the back patio at my sibling group's house in Bakersfield. It's a dry-hopped red ale, and boy, is it ruby red! I was first attracted to the can which features a classic VW van. It's pleasant and roasty, with Munich malt and German style hops.. I'm used to red ale having a sharp taste from a little rye in the mix, but there's none of that character here. So I still don't understand why it's red.Drive Thru Red (7.2% ABV -- reviewed 25 July 2023)

        Triple Point Brewing Company, Sheffield, South Yorkshire:

        `
        • I popped this open early in the afternoon after learning we’ve been ejected from the Christmas day plans I was looking forward to. So now we’re looking forward to a festive day with two depressed people stuck in the same house alone, as it has been throughout the entire Lockdown, on Xmess Day. What fun. So I’ve decided to get pissed tonight, starting with this. It’s brewed with Citra, Casade, and Centennial hops, which seem to be pretty much your classic American hops. And it’s hoppy, yes, but in a restrained way, with a cinnamon-stick-textured finesse on the tongue. The name of the beer refers to 270 degrees due west, which is the directional heading for sunset, apparently. So bring on sunset, I say!270° WCIPA (4.6% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
          `
        • This beer is a collaboration with the Crown & Kettle Brewpub in Manchester. It's brewed with El Dorado, Cryo Ekuanot, and Wai-Iti hops, and the proceeds from the sales of this beer go to the ICRC which supports Ukrainian civilians, so that’s a great cause for drinking a beer. As I warmed up and my sinuses clogged up again in the smoky stuffiness of our house, at least I could feel good about drinking this. It was very nice, with definitely a lime tinge in a wonderful guava-pineapple bouquet.An Exercise In Friendship (6.2% ABV -- reviewed 15 November)
          `
        • Brewed with blossom honey, cryo Loral and Amarillo hops, this was pleasant. Not really bitter, but definitely not sweet, either, so it was very easy drinking. In fact, some of my lager drinking friends might even like this, if it wouldn’t be too hoppy for them.Blossom Cryo-Hopped Keller Pils (4.5% ABV -- reviewed 15 November)
          `
        • Brewed with Galaxy, Ekuanot, Rakau, and Simcoe hops, and then dry-hopped with more Galaxy, this beer was described as "a Czech astronaut launched into the stratosphere". It was indeed a very nice space-walk immediately after my interstellar journey, with a whopping hoppy tickle swimming merrily through my mouth.Galaxy Pale (6.6% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
          `
        • This beer is a collaboration with Cervejaria Invicta of Ribeirao Preto, Sao Paolo, Brazil. Brewed with Cryo Amarillo, Cryo Citra, Cryo El Dorado, and Cryo Sabro hops, it comes in a gorgeous green, gold, and rusty red can. So what’s not to like? When I popped open the can, the aroma scented the entire room. It was very perfumey, with chewy hops. And wow! It really cheered me up.Invicta Cryo-Hopped NEIPA (7.0% ABV -- reviewed 15 November 2022)
          `
        • Brewed with CryoPop, Cryo Mosaic, and Cryo Talus hops, this is described as having the flavours of citrus, stone fruits, bubblegum, and rose blossom. The hops mixture is quite fruity indeed, and the beer has a very light haze, like a mist rising from the wet grass after the sun comes out. Doing a bit of research I learned that Libertas is the goddess of freedom, as in being able to drink whatever hops combination one wants, I suppose. And CryoPop is not a new music genre, but rather a cryo hops blend from the wonderful hops innovators, Yakima Chief, who separate whole hops cones into concentrated lupulin and bract. That sounds all right with me.Libertas NEIPA (6.2% ABV -- reviewed 15 October 2023)
          `
        • This is a collaboration with Sheffield’s own Heist Brewery, so it’s an all-Sheffield collaboration. Brewed with Chinook, Cryo Cascade, Cryo Centennial and Cryo Simcoe hops, it tastes like my sense of smell has become recently: multi-faceted, four-dimensional, like walking down a street and smelling every garden, every fruit bowl, every kitchen, and every wet pavement all at once. It's definitely the character of fruit surrounded by ozone. This is a rapidly nature-appreciating brew. So if I stop at Triple Point after work, can I get a pint of this? If I walk down the hill to Heist, can I get a pint of this? Or do I have to meet somewhere midway? Let’s see, according to Google Maps and my pub triangulation, that would be the Kommune multi-venue dining centre in Sheffield City Centre, which does have a bar. Hmm, I wonder...Shots Fired West Coast IPA (7.2% ABV -- reviewed 3 October 2022)
          `
        • Apparently this is the brewery’s first IPA-times-2, hence the X2. The strong beer uses a double dose of five hops: Admiral, Chinook, Centennial, Mosaic, and Simcoe. It sounded like an exciting idea to me, and since I felt like celebrating good news including the new President of the United States and the first Covid-19 vaccine to be potentially released very soon, I decided to give this a whirl. The first taste was wowingly strong with a massive collaboration of hops, but with an unexpected sweet edge to it all, which may be due to the fact that you can really taste the high alcohol. It seemed at first like a great foggy-night refresher, but then it became a bit too cloying. Perhaps it’s just too much of everything, all at once. It would suit some tastes, but I think I prefer a bit more, um, suavity.X2 Double Debut DDH US IPA (7.5% ABV -- reviewed 23 November 2020)

        Turning Point Brew Company, Knaresborough, North Yorkshire:

        `
        • Brewed with Galaxy, Azacca, and Bru-1 hops, there is definitely a sense of incense burning in this complication of flavours. It’s a very interesting beer, with quite a complicated first taste followed by a crossroads of several different bitternesses and fragrances, all weaved into a tight luminescent lattice. I could actually have drawn a picture of the taste. It was Day 4 of Billie-No-Mates Down Syndrome, which perfectly describes the way I was feeling, so I was feeling like getting a little pissed. Would I see God? Would I become one with the Brahma-Atma? Would I find peace and happiness and friends? Hey, it was worth a try...Mmm, glory be! There’s a subtle but deeply religious intent of this beer. My American brewery-visiting companion Mistah Rick would definitely like it.Divinations NEIPA (6.8% ABV -- reviewed 23 November 2020)
          `
        • When I started to pour this beer into my glass, it produced an extremely tall and frothy head, so I had to wait a bit until I could actually taste it. It was the end of a day I had taken off work to attend a dear friend’s funeral and wake, and I was looking forward to settling down with. But it stayed way too foamy. After a good half hour, I still couldn’t get down to the liquid beer. And it’s strange, because I had just bought this can, so it couldn’t have been out of date. Frankly I was not impressed. It was a shame, because it could just be from the trauma that this particular can went through. Oh well, win some, lose some.Thank You Space Expert Cryo IPA (6.8% ABV -- reviewed 6 February 2023)

        Two Roses Brewery, Barnsley, South Yorkshire:

        `
        • This bottle-conditioned brew is described on the label as a vegan single-hopped golden ale. Whatever it's called, it's all right! It's zingy and tidy, a very nice bottle of beer, I must say. And I'll say it again: it's a very tidy beer.Chinook (4.0% ABV -- reviewed 24 August 2013)

        Two Tribes Brewery, London:

        `
        • When I took Eurostar from London to Paris recently, I had a can of this with my onboard snack. It has been brewed especially for Eurostar, with Mandarina Bavaria hops and Maris Otter, Caramel, and Belgian Chateau Biscuit malts. Considering I was on a train I was quite happy with it. It was pleasantly hoppy with a multi-European character, and hints of citrus, mandarin, and grapefruit. Things could certainly be worse.Nomad Pale Ale (4.5% ABV -- reviewed 18 March 2024)

        Unbranded Brewing Company, Hialeah, Florida:

        `
        • On one of my last nights in Bakersfield in June, my unofficial brother Kim and I shared this can after a few pints at a local tap, and I'd forgotten to mention it. It had a hoppy punch amid a fluffy haziness, which was probably pretty much where I was at that point. The hops are Mosaic, El Dorado, and Galaxy, and the beer was named after a circus performer because of the triple hops and the high ABV. Yep, it pretty much knocked me out.Strong Man TIPA (8.1% ABV -- reviewed 4 September 2023)

        Verdant Brewing Company, Penryn Cornwall:

        `
        • Brewed with Citra and Galaxy hops, barley, wheat, and oats, this is an mmm, yes, def! brew. It's hazy but with a good, solid, dry hoppy taste. I drank it in celebration of a little rare sunshine kind of day while my dear friend's heart was being property prepared.Even Sharks Need Water IPA (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 4 September 2023)
        • The can of this beer says “The Experiment requires a conclusion. Hot side: Citra, Galaxy, and Nectaron. Cold side: Nctaron, Citra, and Galaxy”. I had no idea what that meant, but this was quite nice and interesting, with several character profiles banging into each other in their own unique and fruity ways. So I got mostly pineapple and lime, which is a fine combo. I drank this after work on a cool October day, with post-rain all through the city, weaving itself through the miles of torn-up pavements. This beer is a collaboration with Pressure Drop of London, but sadly that microbrewery had to close recently.Pressure Drop(6.0% ABV -- reviewed 19 November 2023)

        Vocation Brewing Company, Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire:

        `
        • When I recently had a couple of pints with a friend at Vocation Brewery in Sheffield, before we left I couldn't help buying a can of this special edition salted lime sour. Another in a series of Vocation's Death By series, which has also featured Cherries and Pineapple, this is brewed with lemon, agave, and sea salt, and the can says "Muerte por Limón! Sal! Agave!" It's quite amazing!: intensely sour with a delicious smokiness from the agave. But I have to admit that the salt intensifies the sourness. It was a lot of fun for the first half of the can, but then it became tiresome, as I could have done with less salt. But I'm not a big salt fan -- in fact 'm one of those "no salt" margarita people. Still, it's a great beer for the suddenly cool July days which are apparently on a short warming trend, and after experiencing the bus on the way home from work being taken over by a hostile tribe. It was an unusual beer for an unusual day.Death By Margarita (4.5% ABV -- reviewed 25 July 2023)
          `
        • Recently I attended my friend Lulu’s birthday picnic on Bole Hill on the first (and probably last) hot sunny day of the year. After searching for a good half hour in mile-high growth for the location of the picnic, I was disappointed to find the first bottle of beer I’d brought along had gone bad and completely fizzed out of the bottle. Fortunately I’d thought to bring a second bottle of Divide & Conquer. It probably wasn’t the most ideal day for a black IPA, but this was really tasty with good zimbly hops. As everybody else drank their tinnies of pale Stella, I drank my darkness in its black bottle so I wouldn’t see just how dark it was.Divide & Conquer (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 25 June 2016)
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        • Brewed with Cara and Extra Pale malts and Cascade, Centennial, Chinook, and Citra hops, this beer comes in a tie-dye can with a surfer theme. Consumed during the first week of the Covid-19 Lockdown, this brew offers good waxin’-the-board zingy hops which brightened up the suddenly cold, dark and hail-speckled day.Dewwwwd!Hang Loose Epic West Coast IPA (7.7% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Magic Rock Brewing, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire -- reviewed 4 May 2020)
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        • This is a session IPA that comes in a 330ml can. As I poured it I was struck by the amazing aroma that hit my nose. For awhile I just wanted to smell it rather than taste it, but I finally did taste it. It's packed full of West Coast hops, with that Pacific Coast OOMPH!. Andrew thought there was some sort of vegetable imparted, such as possibly pumpkin or squash, but I thought more guava, which like grapefruit I think is a very agreeable flavour in pale hoppy beers. I can picture taking a few cans of this to an afternoon barbecue, if it ever becomes barbecue weather again, that is. On the day I drank this it was very cloudy and cool with rain forecast for the entire week. Ah well, I can pretend...Heart & Soul (4.4% ABV -- reviewed 23 July 2017)
          `
        • This is brewed with Citra BBC and Simcoe hops, and I’m wondering what the BBC stands for. Not the British Broadcasting System, and surely not the local football hooligans who call themselves the Blades Business Club. Ah, it stands for the Boston Beer Company, who developed a better kind of hop pellet for brewing hoppier beers. But back to the Hop, Skip, and Juicy: it’s a great beer that suits this warm summery April day, with people blasting music through huge speakers and conversing with their neighbours, all the people lucky enough to have front porches so they can social distance. And I’m trying to get Vitamin D sunshine exercise therapy for my broken heart. The can is very pretty, the colours of tropical fruit, a la Carmen Miranda’s headdress. Chica-chica-boom!Hop, Skip, and Juicy Pale Ale (5.7% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Marble Brewery, Manchester -- reviewed 6 June 2020)
          `
        • This beer is nice and bright and hoppy, good for a video call from a friend followed immediately by a video call from my California mom’s house. Vocation definitely make nice, satisfying little cans of beer.Pride & Joy (5.3% ABV -- reviewed 4 May 2020)
          `
        • This was a Special Edition brew, with Amarillo and Citra hops. Its hazy, fruity hoppiness was perfect for the sunny, pollen-filled day after work, my second-to-last day of work before my nice long California holiday. It was pleasant, cool,and refreshing, like a little splash in the pool. Of course, if I were in a pool, I would be vigorously swimming laps, as I’m a swimmer and not a splasher.Roll With It DDH Pale Ale (5.2% ABV -- reviewed 15 November 2022)
          `
        • This is brewed with a lovely combination of Citra, Sabro, and Galaxy hops. I bought this can the last time I was at Vocation in Division street, but I hadn’t realised how strong it was until I got home. And it did taste quite strong, so I got a very, very tropica, fruity flavour. At that strength it could have used a bit of a resiny smell (meaning pine resin, in case you jump to any conclusion). The can is a bright orchid colour, just like a t-shirt I have, and I was tempted to go change into the t-shirt so that I’d match the can. I sipped this at home on a very cold but happily sunny and dry day, with the city outside overflowing with hordes of students. So I guess things are pretty much back to pre-lockdown normal.Smash & Grab (8.0% ABV -- reviewed 15 October 2023)
          `
        • As I’m trying this beer in mid-December, before yet another lockdown, my hair is newly brightly-coloured, so I’m feeling relatively good. Christmas is looking extremely bleak and lonely, so why not break away and take a long, strong journey through hopfields of the world? This beer is brewed with Galaxy (for jetting around planets), Mosaic (bringing to mind the tile floors of Morocco), and Citra (ending with a tour through Southern California orchards). The idea of this appeals to me, as the only desire I have at the moment is to travel somewhere far away from where I am now. And my first sip brings a wh-wh-wh-WHOW! Yep, I can hear the crackle of the cocked barrel, the instant reloading, the Wham! Wham! Wham into my palate. This will bring out the neon turquoise, jade green, and purple in my hair, yessireebob!Sure Shot 15 Mile Round Trip Double IPA (8.0% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Sure Shot Brewing Company, Manchester -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
          `
        • Hopped with HBC 630 hops this comes in a pretty can decorated with tropical colours, in sort of a red-less Carmen Miranda headdress of a design. It’s been a few years, but let me do my Gilly Goolden impression: Ooh, I’m getting guava and banana and papaya in the first sniff! It’s not super hoppy, but it’s really nice, actually. I’d like to get a little paper umbrella that I could balance on the side of my glass, along with perhaps a little plastic monkey hanging by its curly tail. It makes me want to be in Hawaii, sitting out enjoying the sun, instead of snuggling up here in Yorkshire with the heat blasting from the radiator.Tri-Hops-Ical DDH Pale Ale (5.7% ABV -- -- reviewed 20 July 2021)

        Weird Beard Brew Company, London:

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        • Recently at home I enjoyed a bottle of this beer. Described on the bottle as “A Mixed Up IPA”, this is bottle conditioned with English malt, American yeast ,and Target and Aurora hops, and then dry hopped. It was a cloudy pour, but that was probably mostly due to my not very good bottle-conditioned-beer-decanting abilities. The taste was of tingly fruity hops, like a tangerine without the tangerine flavour. It was buzzy like a little bee. It was definitely a get-over-this-damn-cold tonic.Hit The Lights (5.8% ABV -- reviewed 27 October 2015)

        Wells & Young Ltd, Bedford, Bedfordshire:

        `
        • One evening we decided to break open a couple of bottles of beer bought during the Christmas season. This beer emits a gorgeous bouquet of banana bread when you first raise the glass to your lips, with the bouquet literally filling the room. The bottle says it's brewed with Fair Trade bananas, which is good to know. But it's such a strange tasting beer. Who can imagine drinking a beer brewed with bananas? Surprisingly the bananas go quite well with the bitter malt and the traditional English hops character. There is also "banana flavour" added, which probably adds to the room-filling banana scent. Do I like it? I can't decide...as I keep sipping, sipping, searching for the answer...Banana Bread Beer (5.2% ABV -- reviewed 1 July 2012)

        Wentworth Brewing Company, Wentworth, South Yorkshire:

        `
        • One winter day I tried a bottle of this that had been sitting on the cellar stairs for a few months. Because this beer is actually orange in colour it makes me think of Halloween, even though it's December already, with lots of snow outside. It's sparkling and orangey in flavour as well, with that lovely rampant dose of hops. Because the word rampant has several different definitions, it makes sense that this beer demonstrates two definitions of the word "orange". I feel like a scampering catgoat, an orange striped catgoat. Bring on the snow!Rampant Gryphon (6.2% ABV -- reviewed 5 December 2010)

        Whitefaced Beer, Penistone, South Yorkshire:

        `
        • On the second night of Sheffield going into Tier 3 I had a can of this. Brewed with Citra and Falconers Flight hops, it’s nice and hoppy and pale, with no reddish tones like the rye ales I got used to. It suggests just a tinge of sweetness but not too much, so it's perfectly acceptable and balanced and actually quite interesting. The mint green can is acceptable as well. It had been a sunny cold day and the time had just changed back to British Winter Time. So perhaps the can should properly be called wintergreen.First Flight Hazy Rye Pale Ale (6.0% ABV -- reviewed 23 November 2020)

        White Hag Irish Brewing Company, Ballymote, County Sligo, Ireland:

        `
        • "Ninth wave" is an old sailing term for an especially big wave, due to the fact that it’s likely to appear after several smaller ones. The term also refers, in Irish mythology, to the barrier that separates the earthly world from the "otherworld". In this particular case, it refers to another good hoppy brew as well as my first Irish can of beer. And this good hoppy Irish beer follows the good hoppy New Zealand beer with which I preceded it excellently. It just proves that it’s worthwhile to branch out a bit from the usual English and American offerings.Ninth Wave New World Pale Ale (5.4% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
          `
        • Part of the brewery’s Union Series, SMASH stands for Single Malt And Single Hop, which is how this beer is made. The malt is Irish Ale malt, but sadly there is no mention of what the hops is. It’s just another nice pale hoppy brew, so it may be the Citra version. But with this horrendous year of 2020 nearly finished (as I drank this on the day before New Year’s Eve) perhaps, like what 2021 will bring us, it seems appropriate to not know for sure what hops are used.SMASH IPA (5.5% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)

        Wild Beer Company, Shepton Mallet, Somerset:

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        • Apparently the term “bibble” means to drink loudly, often, and well in old Somerset dialect. When I picked it off the shelf I thought it said “Bubble”. But as I was sipping this beer, which had a surprising first impression, I noticed on the bottle that the u was actually an i. And I then realised I was drinking a beer named after one of my characters in my most recent e-novel, The Hat Club, available on Smashwords.Com. (Bibble is the nickname that a trio of employees have given to their manager, Bob Jibble.) Brewed with a big hit of Mosaic hops, along with Magnum, Summit, and Amarillo, this pale ale finally settled down into a very light texture on the palate, but still a pleasant hoppiness with a balanced maltiness. I realised I felt a bit of relief that it wasn’t called Bubble after all, as I had just discovered that my box of 45s, some rare Los Angeles-in-the-late-70s-and-early-80s singles, as well as my entire collection of 1980s indy band singles picked up in Paris and Munich, had become soaked by some sort of mysterious but worrying flooding in the cellar, as this box and a couple of other more valuable boxes were sitting high on a table and not on the floor. Anyway, most of the irreplaceable paper covers are sodden, some glued to the 45s and therefore ripped, so I’ve got a big restoration and piecing together job ahead of me. So I might need to steel myself with a few more cans of Bibble...Bibble (4.2% ABV -- reviewed 6 June 2020)
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        • This beer was brewed with oats with a hint of vanilla in the aroma. On the can it described it as having “Modern aromatic tropical hops flavours”, but there was no mention of which hops were used. But it was very smooth and drinkable, with a dry fruitiness. I suppose it would be a good session beer in that respect; but the 4.7 seemed a bit high for thinking about having three or four of these in a row. I mean, I wouldn’t myself, especially if I were sitting out in the hot sun.Under the Sun Session Hazy IPA (4.7% ABV -- reviewed 15 November 2022)

        Wild Card Brewery, Walthamstow, Greater London:

        `
        • This features Mosaic, Simcoe, and Citra hops. I don’t really like it. It feels a bit like muddy silt in the mouth, and although it’s like all the other modern craft beers -- naturally hazy, with wheat and oats -- it doesn’t grab me. It means well, though, so perhaps it’s just that I expect something more zizzly, zingy, and stimulating. On the plus side the can is really attractive, with a proud bird with a blue head sporting a Mohican on a green background. And I’m happy to see that the artist, Valero Doval, has been given credit on the can. Nice work! Reading about the brewery’s other beers, I think I’d try another offering from Wild Card, because some of the beers look promising. And I’m an optimist.India Pale Ale (5.5% ABV -- reviewed 27 August 2020)

        Wilde Childe Brewing Company, Leeds, West Yorkshire:

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        • Once again the name of a beer attracted me first, and the fact that the hops used are Columbus, Centennial, Chinook, and Simcoe pretty much convinced me to try it. Mixed in with the hops is a strong malt presence as well. The can’s design features a splattering of psycho-ness, but it’s suspiciously a bit Jackson Pollock style. As I sip this beer I can’t help but wonder why someone hasn’t yet brewed a Bob Ross Happy Cloud IPA...American Psycho (6.6% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
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        • This is a Southern Hemisphere IPA with Galax, Nelson Sauvin, and Motueka hops. Whoo-hoo, it’s nice. I drank this on yet another cold and dark day; but the coolness of the day, in an almost cryo-suggestive way, made the hops feel cold on my tongue. There’s something special about cooling hops on a freezing day that warms the soul.Shoot To Thrill (6.0% ABV -- reviewed 20 July 2021)
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        • I bought this Chocolate and Toasted Coconut Stout over a year ago to drink during the holiday season of 2022, and I’ve only just got to it. It’s, um, definitely chocolate and definitely coconut. But it’s a bit too sweet for my tastes, though, but with only 28 IBU of bitterness I think it would please an aficionado of sweet stouts. It’s brewed with six different malts, lactose, cocoa powder, and toasted coconut, and, well, you get the idea. It’s just not my cup of tea.Thunder in Paradise (6.9% ABV -- reviewed 12 February 2024)
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        • Brewed with Amarillo and Vic Secret hops, and also oats, this was a welcome occurrence on a Friday after work. It’s got a lovely hops character, not a beat-on-the-head hop rush, but just a yum-flavoured easy spice about it. It’s very pleasant, if I say so, which I’m doing right now. While I was enjoying this I decided to research Vic Secret hops. They’re Australian and similar to Galaxy, with a pineapple and passionfruit character, so no wonder I like them. I mean, you can’t wear Vic Secret hops instead of knickers, so you may as well drink them.Uncontrollable Occurrence (4.8% ABV -- reviewed 20 July 2021)

        Wild Horse Brewing Company, Llandudno, Wales:

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        • Brewed with Loral and Wai-Iti hops this beer is described on the Wild Horse website as a “rotating hop pale ale”, although my can was pretty stationary on the table. The brewery specialise in light and hoppy brews using both new and old hops varieties. Written on the can is the following: “Wedi ei fragu yng nghysgodion y mynyddoedd ac awel y môr”. According to Google Translate, this loosely means “Mastered in the mountain fisheries and the sea of the sea”. This mouthy bit of Welsh is followed by the much more useful and learnable “Iechyd da!”, which means “Good health!” (I’ve only been to Wales once, which was for a weekend break. But as a person who’s always been good at learning foreign languages, I instantly -- but sadly only temporarily -- learned many of the Welsh road-sign terms, and knew that I would be happy to learn the whole language if I suddenly found myself living there.) Anyway, this is a pleasantly easy brew, very drinkable, especially when chilled, but not terribly exciting. I did happily discover that as soon as I took a coupe of bites of our evening meal, the grilled salmon and purple potatoes with chewy caramelised garlic suddenly set the Scorched Earth ablaze, with its hidden bubbly hoppiness leaping to the fore like a stoked fire. So I’d highly recommend this beer with salmon and garlic.Scorched Earth (4.2% ABV -- reviewed 6 June 2020)
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        • Brewed with Galaxy and Citra hops, this beer was created as a tribute to the Llandudno Tram which carries tourists from the town up to the summit of the Great Orne. This is the brewery’s 5th version of this particular beer. It’s extremely hazy, probably the haziest of all of the intentionally hazy beers I’ve tried. It’s got a very bitter hops, like a funicular tram ride through the thick clouds with the intention of cooling off after the warm, muggy, high-pollen day. It’s an interesting combination, Galaxy and Citra, and a bit strange. It suggests a big dose of lemon zest added to a heady incense.Tramcar IPA (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 6 June 2020)

        8 Wired Brewery, Warkworth, New Zealand:

        `
        • The hops used are Nelson Sauvin, Mosaic, Citrus, and Galaxy. This is my very first Kiwi beer in a can! I’m so excited to taste it, as New Zealand is home to many of the fine hops. And I do like salads. Once again this is my Saturday Zoom pub group quiz refreshment, miles away from the Southern Hemisphere but only a few clicks virtually.Hop Salad Hazy IPA (6.0% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)

        Wold Top Brewery, Driffield, North Yorkshire:

        `
        • Brewed with three hops, this has a traditional taste with possibly a North American hops in the bouquet garnis, giving it a good complex flavour. It was just what I needed after yet another surreal bus ride home.Scarborough Fair (8.0% ABV -- reviewed 6 May 2017)

        Yakima Chief Hopunion, Yakima, Washington:

        `
        • This is hopped with T90 Cascade, Simcoe, Mosaic, and Citra hops, then dry-hopped with Simcoe, Mosaic, and Citra lupulin powder, and including WL, P066, and London Fog yeasts. This beer is a complicated creation, with that distinct Cryo/Cascade touch on the palate, like a snowy walk on the top of Mt Rainier while listening to a chemistry class on your headphones. It’s very nice.Dewwwwd!Grower Owned IPA (6.0% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Magic Rock Brewery, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire -- reviewed 26 April 2021)

        Yeastie Boys, Wellington, New Zealand:

        `
        • This Kiwi tea-inspired beer is smoother than one would expect, and lighter, but interesting and unique. The can says it’s floral and smells like “your granny’s bedroom” -- but obviously they aren’t referring to my late granny, because “musty old lady” doesn’t sound like a beer flavour I would want to try. This was created for the Great Australian Beer SpecTAPular in 2012. The ingredients include plenty of Earl Grey Blue Flower Tea as well as New Zealand’s own Pacific Jade hops. And the beer is named after Gunnamatta Bay in southern Sydney, Australia, which itself is named for the sandy hills.Gunnamatta Earl Grey IPA (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 26 April 2021)
          `
        • This beer is fruity, hoppy, and crisp, very appropriate for the crisp and clear day on which I drank it. There was even a bit of snow, mostly melted by now but some left on the ground, and plenty of ice to reflect the clear sky above. But that sky made me very happy, as there was no wet stuff falling down and getting me soaked and shivering. This beer is most definitely reflecting fruit, specifically kumquats and grapefruit. The hops include Styrian Dragon, Styrian Fox, Nelson Sauvin, and Riwaka, and there is also Kolsch yeast and an extra dose of the beta-glucosidase enzyme. a what does the title refer to?Reflections on a Floating World (6.0% ABV -- brewed in collaboration with Pivovarna Pelicon, Ajdovščina, Slovenia -- reviewed 26 April 2021)