Big Tiki
Hop City Brewing Co.

 

 

look: big frothy rocky pale pink head with good retention, beer is a redish orange colour, red lemonade-esque, good levels of carbonation.

smell: way more malt aroma than i was anticipating, white bread, biscuit, grass, smells like fruit cordial otherwise, lot of cherry, slightly tart, lot of pineapple too and mango, intriguing enough.

taste: i mean it tastes alright but it doesn’t drink like a beer, fizzy fruit soda more like, but with enough malt character to leave you confused, lot of white bread malt, very sweet, pineapple and tart cherry, mango and papaya, sweet fruit flavours linger on the finish which is nice, but it’s an odd one now.

feel: light bodied, light carbonation, little watery, sticky, eh.

overall: i wouldn’t have bought myself this beer in a million years, but i got it in the beerclub’s advent calendar, so maybe i’m not the best judge, i mean it’s not that bad, it’s actually alright, just not a beer i wouldn’t want again.

A-Fruit punch strawberry pink in colour with a fluffy white head.
S-Strong malt aroma, with an assertive pear and peach nectar fragrance
M-Medium body and carbonation, with a puckering sweetness that stings a bit
T-Heavy pear flavour, and quite sweet. Like mixing a beer with straight pear nectar.
O-I am not sure what I was expecting, but this was a pleasant surprise outside the ordinary. It is definitely too sweet, however. Easy drinking on a hot summer day.

Appearance: Raspberry red body with orange notes that has soda pop levels of carbonation in the body. The pour produced two fingers of head that didn't retain very wait but produced some minor lace.

Smell: There's a mild tropical fruit punch smell coming from this one, which didn't really improve very much with warming. Given the color and this is apparently supposed to be "Big Tiki" it's a bit lacklustre here. That said, it is as advertised.

Taste: My biggest complaint is this in no way tastes like beer. It tastes like tropical punch, which is a guess is what they are trying to go for with tiki branding on the can. However, in terms of tasting like punch, something is off, almost like it's half real juice and half fruit drink. It's a giant fruit mishmash for fruit, pineapple, guava, passionfruit and papaya ending with a sour cherry snap.

Mouthfeel: Carbonation is quite good, and I guess the fruit transitions well here, as the pineapple and passionfruit, moves to guava and papya before the sour cherry appears, but it doesn't transistion like a beer. In fact, if you were blindfolded, you probably would think this is mild spiked punch with some seltzer thrown in, and not beer.

Drinkability: It's fruity and easy to drink, but I again iterate, this does not taste remotely like beer. Light bodied, which I guess isn't surprising and easy on the system, but it's drinking a spiked fruit drink.

Final Thoughts: This isn't a beer, this is a canned tiki punch where they used beer to add alcohol to it instead of vodka or rum, and completely buried the beer aspects. Arguably, this in my eyes, defeats some of the purpose of a tiki drink, where there should be some rum presence. The only reason to drink this is because I can't get all the ingredients to make a tiki punch/don't have room to make a full bowl of punch, but I still want something that resembles a tiki punch. I've actually started drinking a lot more tiki drinks, but given how many of them there are, I don't see when I'd want a small, mild punch in a can. It isn't bad at what it is (but it can't compare to a fresh made tiki bowl) and in no way does it answer the question of "Why did you make this a beer, and not just make a vodka or rum cooler"

Slightly hazy pinkish-red with a modest head. Muted nose, some fruit, some grain. Sweet, light body, not a lot of flavour. Average crispness. Underwhelming.

 

473 mL can from the LCBO; dated Feb 25 2019 and served slightly chilled.

Pours a clear pinkish-red hue, sporting an inch-thick cap comprised of soapy, foamy, pale pink-tinged head. It lasts for five minutes or so, dissipating down to a modest collar and filmy cap within that time; a decent amount of lacing has also been splattered about. You'd expect a beer like this (with such a bright and attractive colour) to smell fragrant and fruity, but you'd be wrong - its aroma is extremely muted, with only a few hints of gritty wheat and grainy pale malts to go along with a muddled hint of cherry.

Generally inoffensive, but this brew is just not up my alley at all - and the Hawaiian Punch comparison made by polloenfuego is very apt, indeed. It's sweet and a little sugary, but not necessarily cloyingly so, with a gritty, grainy pale malt backbone that manages to hold steady as the fruit punch flavours wash over the taste buds. Cherry is the only one of the six fruits that I found easy to discern, though the pineapple juice also shows up a little towards the finish and into the aftertaste - the other four (mango, guava, passion fruit, papaya) just kind of jumble together into a prototypical fruit punch medley. Finishes sweet, with more cherry juice tartness fading into a lightly sweet aftertaste. Light in body, with relatively assertive, spunky carbonation that prickles the palate, effectively counteracting the beer's otherwise slick, "fruit drink"-like texture. I know it's only 4.5%, but I still didn't find this particularly drinkable.

Final Grade: 3.13, a C+. Big Tiki was mostly a big disappointment, and almost certainly the weakest Hop City product I've sampled to date. Don't get me wrong, it tastes OK - albeit nothing like a beer - and although the profile leans sweet, I also wouldn't say that it's too sugary (which is a common complaint of mine concerning this type of pseudo-beer). I just don't think fruit punch blends very well with beer.

 

Starts off pretty, interesting colour, big head. Candy after that. Even as a kid I was never fussed on tropical punch flavours, now as a bigger kid I'm not real excited about punch and beer it seems. Just a not so good novelty brew that might be of interest to the sugary cooler crowd.

 

 

 

What happens when you mix Hawaiian Punch with a blond ale? You get Big Tiki. It looks promising on pour... raspberry pink with a fluffy white head. Then you smell it...Kool aid and macro. Finally you summon up the courage to taste it...yep, fruit punch and weak beer. What a great beer for people who hate beer! Not at all for me, if I wanted Hawaiin Punch, I would have bought it.