Mad Squirrel Brewing Company, Potten End, Hertfordshire:
` 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)
` 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)
` 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:
` 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:
` 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:
` 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:
` 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:
` 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:
` 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:
` 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:
` 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 Brewery, Abingdon-on-Thames, Oxfordshire:
` 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)
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