IPX Single Hop Series: Chinook
Hopworks Brewery

22oz bottle - with some nicely informative ingredient descriptions on the label.

This beer pours a slightly hazy, medium copper amber colour, with two fingers of puffy, loosely foamy, and bubbly ecru head, which leaves some dense hedgerow lace around the glass as it slowly but surely abates.

It smells of dank pine resin, some orange, tangerine, and white grapefruit citrus zest, gritty and grainy pale malt, a hard water flintiness, and more leafy, weedy, and floral green hop bitters. The taste is grainy and bready pale malt, a hint of caramel sweetness, complex citrus notes (blood orange, grapefruit, and a bit of lemon/lime), more wet stoney notes, and some plain leafy, piney, and musty floral verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is fairly soft in its lilting frothiness, the body an adequate middleweight, and generally smooth, the bitterness of the hops not really a concern here. It finishes off-dry, the malt and peppy citrus fruitiness lingering on like a couple of old friends who recently caught up with each other.

Overall, this is definitely one of the better single-hopped affairs that I've yet come across - Chinook in HUB's hands certainly does the job, and more. Nice and flavourful and fruity, with just enough counteracting bitterness to keep things from going off the rails in either direction. Good, good stuff.

Slightly hazy, orange in color. Foamy head with streak lacing. Aroma is citrus and caramel malt. The flavor follows suit, and has pine, citrus and spice qualities. Well balanced and smooth with decent taste. Maybe not an all time favorite, but drinkable and enjoyable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pours a pale straw/lemon yellow with a deep center tending closer towards the golden stereotype of the style. Good pillow white head that sticks around and laces the glass quite nicely.

Sweet sweet citrus. Tangerine cuties. Reminds me of HS lunch. It's kind of thin and one dimensional, but it's a good dimension!!

There's some interesting stuff going on, but it's lacking depth and complication. A side effect of being a single hop, perhaps? Even still, it seems it could have had more... anything? There's a nice swath through the middle when the Chinook's rear their sweet citrus head and give it a nice middle, but leaving the edges unhinged. Kind of like a team with a couple of nice supporting type players, but no positional balance or stars to finish the play.

A bit thin, but decent carbonation level and a good finish showcasing both the sweet citrus that has run rampant throughout and a decent pithy tail that lingers at the very end.

This is my first run in with a single hop beer (that I'm aware of anyway/that is explicitly a single hop beer), and I really like/appreciate the idea. I consider it a solid education experience, so I can better recognize the characteristics presented by specific hop varietals. That being said, it's not a beer that I'd jump all over myself to drink again. Solid presentation of the hops it set out to present, but even with that goal in mind, I felt like it could have been a bit more flushed out and supported by the body/malts/etc.

 

Slightly hazy bright orange amber in color. Pours a nice foamy splash in the Ciney snifter with some decent lacing. Light bodied and slightly oily mouthfeel. A smokey sharp green mango aromatic note. Quite spritzy.

The hop flavor is distinctive and not quite like anything I can remember. Fermenting apricots comes to mind. There is a unusual tart taste in the finish, like unripe raspberries. While there is some moderate upfront bitterness, this is not a highly biter brew. The aftertaste does have some grapefruit bitterness with a bold acidity like unripe raspberries. Herbal and malty with that grapefruit perfume.

Strange fruit. From the 22 oz bottle purchased at the Community Co-op in Bellingham for five bucks.