Smashing Jalapeño Blonde
Hoppin' Frog Brewery

2023-07-23
12oz can served in a snulip. @ozzylizard sent it to me in a box that was unexpected but I have assumed to be associated with NBS BIF #17. He sent me two cans, and my wife is drinking the other one right now. I'm reviewing this as a pepper beer, not just a blonde ale.

Pours a hazy straw yellow with about a finger of head (or slightly more) that settles into a fluffy ring and a thick dusting across the surface. Smell is peppers. Bell peppers and jalapeno peppers. And not much else.

Taste follows suit. There's a bit of heat, but really not a ton. Some grainy honey sweetness. Somehow the green vegetation notes from the peppers turn into something really floral here.

Mouthfeel is light and airy. Overall, it's definitely one of the better pepper beers I've ever had. Strong, clear pepper flavor, but still clearly a beer, with just a mild hit of spicy heat.

Poured a translucent honey color with a very short lived light beige head which left no lacing.
Aroma lost on my Covid affected nose.
The taste was, well, jalapeños. It’s a beer that tastes like jalapeño peppers. Got most of the way through it until I decided to sit back and enjoy instead of dissecting the flavor.
The feel was fine, not heavy, not too light, just the right amount of quaff ability.
Glad to try it, I enjoyed it, but I don’t know that I would seek it out.

Smashing Jalapeno Blonde from Hoppin’ Frog. 12 oz can picked up at the brewery 24/05/23. Reviewed 28/05/23 (Review 3115). Note that I use DD/MM/YY protocol.
Stamped on bottom of can “BEST BY APR 27 2024”. Stored at 34 degrees at home. Served at 39.0 degrees F in a hand washed and dried Jester King snifter. The final temperature was 46.4 degrees F.
Appearance – 4.
First pour – Pale Straw (SRM 2), slight haze.
Body – Pale Gold (SRM 4), opaque. Under direct light, same but translucent. When rear lite, same.
Head: Average (Maximum 3.5 cm, aggressive center pour), snow, high density, quickly diminishing to a 0.2 – 0.3 cm crown and a thin partial cap.
Lacing – Poor. Just a few thin pennants of tiny bubbles.
Aroma – 4.5 – No hops, no malt, no yeast. Distinct and strong vegetal pepper smell. No ethanol (5.2 % ABV as marked on the label).
Flavor – 4.75 – Begins slightly sweet and distinctly jalapeno, no malt, no hops, no yeast. Begins with a mild burning at the back of the throat which advances to the incisors. No dimethylsulfide or diacetyl. Solid gastric warming but no ethanol flavor. In fact, no flavor other than jalapenos.
Palate – 3.75 – Medium; watery; lively carbonation.
Final impression and summation: 4.25 This is one solid chile beer! I’d love to rate it higher, but the lack of beeriness drags it down a bit – no particular maltiness or hoppiness certainly throw it into the blonde ale category, but it hardly seems a beer at all, just a delicious jalapeno mouth wash!

Hoppin' Frog, I love you. BORIS the Crusher, DORIS the Destroyer...your beers are works of art.

Smashing Jalapeño Blonde might be the worst thing I've ever put in my mouth.

There's a great deal of jalapeno smell, but very little jalapeno taste or heat. Instead, you're treated to a sickening vegetable flavor as if you took leave of your senses and chugged the water left over after boiling spinach.

I felt like I needed to apologize to the ground where I poured this out. I drank a White Claw with gusto just to get the taste out of my mouth. I do not like White Claw. I ENJOYED THE WHITE CLAW. I gave away a second jalapeno beer from another brewer because the mere thought of even opening it made me gag.

Hoppin' Frog, this will not color my feelings for you in any way. You're still aces in my book.

 

Foggy straw yellow with a short but dense white foam head slowly receding to a short bubbly collar and slick surface.

This has a sort of spiced cucumber water character, where the spicy heat comes up subtly on the back end. The blonde base brings a light Corn Pops note to the background. The smell, though, is amazingly concentrated of fresh jalapeno, as if someone cut open a pepper right in your face, while somehow not being painfully stinging. Still, the aroma is almost too much, making it all the more surprising just how much less intense it is on the palate.

The slick medium-light body has a fine but very faint carbonation, and finishes semi-wet.