Hazy Domination
Ninkasi Brewing Company

Rated 9-7-2019. Pours a hazy golden/orange color with a medium head that dissipates rather quickly. The aroma is malty grains with tropical fruit. Ninkasi is known for their hoppy beers and this one is no exception, though the hazy style seems to taste less hoppy and bitter. Taste is mild bitterness and slightly dank. Fairly easy drinking beer.

16oz can pours an unfiltered hazy light gold. Smells honestly similar to the original Total Domination with a more pronounced floral fruitiness; pineapple, pine, malty as well, with a soft body but plenty of bitter, resiny, grapefruit peel character and dankness. Dry finish as well. A neat take on an old West Coast/NWIPA classic.

I used to be stoked when I'd find Ninkasi on the shelves, heck I even remember asking el rogish to score me a bottle of vanilla oatis back when it came out. Now, things have changed, pretty much every time I go into Total (Warm Beer) Wine, there is some rando Ninkasi that catches my eye but rarely goes into the cart. Heck, this might be the last 'new' one to do so.

Pours that standard dark golden/yellow color with decent levels of clarity and a full 1.25" white head. Its called a hazy ipa, but looks better than a hazy ipa, which is to say it doesn't look like a hazy ipa. The aroma didn't have the dry hop push I was hoping, smelled like bittering hops.

Taste, wow, tastes like bitter pennies. Lots of copper going on here. The body is normal, not catching anything resembling flaked wheat or oats up in this. Did they just decide to use the word "hazy" as a marketing angle? Seems like it.

I remember the final 3 cans of the 4 pack were either given away, split or used for grilling.

 

16 oz can from Jacksons. Cloudy, medium golden, small creamy head. Malty aroma with some light fruity accents. Malt is also prominent in the taste, caramel, with faint citrus notes. A smoother, creamier version of their Domination IPA.

 

L: Slightly hazy dark gold, but mostly appears as a West Coast Double with a three finger head of good retention and lacing.

S: A citrus malt bomb. Simple.

T: Better than the nose. More balanced, quite balanced actually, but one note orange and lemon citrus. Nothing to write home about.

F: Malty but smooth Med-heavy weight. Very drinkable here.

O: It’s a beer. I’d choose it out again against lesser options, but to buy a can again for home? Nah. Pass.

i guess this is something every brewery feels the need to do now, take one of their classic ipa types, tweak it, and then change the name to include juicy or hazy, or in the sad case of new belgium, both. in any event, this is another solid hoppy beer from ninkasi, and they have done this better than most i suppose, but it seems to be a follower not a leader, which is not how i have come to appreciate this brewery. its definitely mosaic forward in the nose and taste, familiar canned pineapple and cat, comes through the morass of other hops in here. i can also pick up the sweet melon character of el dorado, which i always like when combined with others, and which i have come to be able to identify pretty readily, its an awesome hop, and i get it both in the aroma and flavor of this one. its nice with the seemingly wheat based malt profile, earthy and dry, yellow and cloudy without being too dense or sedimented. id be curious about the other hops in here, but not because they are crazy interesting or unique, but because of how early they seem to start, usually with the dry hop heavy beers, its a late start, more towards the back end of the beer before the hops climax, but here they are pretty pungent from the start, and i like that. on top of that, this is really low in bitterness, way less than the original beer that shares its name, and so it just kind of does a slow fade at the end, even though its quite dry. good carbonation, fresh from the tap, and a better than most example of this now totally overdone style. i trust these guys when it comes to hoppy beer, and they have rarely disappointed.

A juicy flavored, with maybe some mango and/or pineapple from the hops, tame, traditional hazy IPA. This beer is right in the middle of the scale, so don't expect too too much from it.

 

 

 

16oz can

A somewhat aggressive pour yields a finger of fluffy white head into my willi becher glass. Retention is quite good, with at least half a finger hanging around for what seem like forever; not uncommon in this glass though. Body is not nearly as cloudy as most hazy’s, I can actually see through half of the beer, and notice the bubbles. Looks more like a wit, though, those appearances are similar. Looks good so far.

Nose is pretty one sided at first, only showing a heavy lemon citrus, and a faint dank hop aroma. Noticeable amounts of tangerine start to come through and help quite a bit. It smells fine, but still a little too citrusy all around, with little else to support it

Flavor isn’t really doing anything in particular. Has an almost cupcake, fluffy taste in the finish, lots of lactose perhaps? Light notes of citrus I guess, but overall it just kinda tastes like…beer. Nothing standing out. This would make an absolutely amazing lawnmower beer, but as a hazy, it falls short of the flavor profile most breweries are putting out - and that’s considering the fact that I don’t like a good amount of those all that much.

The mouthfeel is quite nice, definitely comes across as fluffy. Body is reasonably thick, sits in my mouth nicely. Carbonation is about medium. Bitterness is quite low, and does not linger. Sugars don’t linger, but are present in the flavor in some areas.

The drinkability is great, it’s extremely sessionable and while it’s not extremely flavorful, it tastes good enough to crush.

The appearance turned out phenomenal, thick sheets of lacing all the way down the glass.

Overall a great session beer, and a nice fluffy mouthfeel to boot. Not really what is standard for the style, but maybe I don’t mind that.

 

 

 

 

 

16oz can - the hazy train keeps on chuggin' away, even from venerable West Coast brewers.

This beer pours a very slightly hazy, pale golden yellow colour, with two fingers of puffy, rocky, and gently bubbly dirty white head, which leaves some decent hoar frost pattern lace around the glass as it slowly seeps away.

It smells of gritty and grainy cereal malt, some orange, red grapefruit, and lemon citrus peel, a faint stoney flintiness, and more leafy, weedy, and piney green hop bitters. The taste is bready and crackery caramel malt, muddled domestic citrus rind, a further indistinct tropical fruitiness, some damp minerality, and more earthy, herbal, and resinous piney hoppiness.

The carbonation is adequate in its palate-satisfying frothiness, the body a so-so medium weight, and generally smooth, with nothing really going out of its way to cause any sort of commotion here. It finishes trending dry, the hops standing tall in the lingering arena.

Overall - yup, they've done fairly well to emulate the NEIPA ideal, excepting the more or less lack of turbidity. They at least nail the whole 'bitterness is a boogieman thing', so there's that, too. At any rate, a very flavourful offering, one which I will enjoy the rest of whilst contemplating what the hell to make for dinner. Yeah, sorry.