Session IPA Nelson
Mikkeller ApS

 

Single can - pours pale hazy golden with ample white head. Piney citrus aroma with bit of grassy note. Taste is bitter citrus with a bit of malty sweetness. Bitterness carries the beer - refreshing and could almost buy this as a standard IPA.

330ml can, the final entry in this round of four new single hop session IPAs from Mikkeller to show up in Alberta of late.

This beer pours a hazy, medium golden yellow colour, with three fingers of puffy, chunky, and somewhat fizzy dirty white head, which leaves some layered bands of sudsy lace around the glass as it evenly subsides.

It smells of dank pine resin, fruity white wine, bready and doughy pale malt, and further leafy, weedy, and floral green hop bitters. The taste is gritty and grainy pale malt, a lesser caramel sweetness, some muddled tropical fruitiness, a hint of white wine lees, and more leafy, piney, and grassy verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is rather laid-back in its quotidian frothiness, the body a decent middleweight, and mostly smooth, with a small aerosol creaminess struggling to get off the ground, so to speak. It finishes off-dry, the malt and mixed fruity essences predominating.

Overall - while still a nice, easy quaff, this Nelson variant sadly exhibits the strongest failure to show off the hop's assets. I was expecting the beer version of Kiwi Sauvignon Blanc, and, yes, there are hints of it here, but not enough to compete with the attractive juiciness of its Amarillo sibling.