Terra Squeeze
Barrier Brewing Company

Copenhagen 4/7 2020. 47,3 cl can from Best of Beers web-shop. Colorful drawing on the can with Earth getting squeezed like an orange. A lot of bloodied slices of citrus fruit in the background to ensure that I get the point.

Pours opaque, hazy, pale, dirty yellow with a big white head. Fairly stable. Settles as thin, uneven, lumpy layer of foam.crawling up the sides of the glass. Substantial lacing.

Aroma is medium intense with light touch of sweet exotic fruit and stronger citric notes. Peach and pineapple. Grape fruit and citrus. Pine.

Light carbonation. Slightly thick, soft, smooth, tingling texture.

Flavor is medium intense with a medium strong sweetness followed by a slightly stronger citric bitterness. Aftertaste is bitter with a sour twist. Finish is dry.

Fine citric, pretty straight forward NEIPA.

I am still smarting about the way that their previous Evolving Chaos CAN acted, but I am willing to stick with them in support of The CANQuest (tm). 'Nuff said.

From the CAN: From the CAN: "Established 2009"; "Terra Squeeze India Pale Ale"; "Illustrated by Daniel F. Birch".

I beCAN with a Crack! of the vent, followed by an initially slow, gentle C-Line Glug into the awaiting glass. It was readily apparent that clarity was not a possibility so I allowed it to run freely while restraining myself from an inverted Glug since those CAN get messy. The initial result was the formation of two-plus fingers of foamy, soapy, rocky, bone-white head with excellent retention. Color was a deeply-hazy/lightly-cloudy Yellow-Gold (SRM = 4 - 5). Nose was a mélange of citrus & tropical fruits with a cattiness that suggested that naughty Simcoe the kitten was also in there, doing her business. Mmm. I got grapefruit, honeydew & CANtaloupe, guava & passionfruit on the nose. Mouthfeel was medium, about on par for the style, with a soft silkiness from the lactose. The taste was less intense than on the nose, but I stick with what I smelled. OTOH, I was left with NO doubt that Simcoe was a major part of this one! The pine-y cattiness was prevalent & unrelenting throughout. I like that sort of thing, but not everyone does. Finish was semi-dry & highly refreshing in this unrelenting heat & humidity. YMMV.

 

 

04/27/20 stamped on bottom lip of can. Poured into a Samuel Adams Perfect Pint.

A: Hazy golden with 2-3 finger eggshell frothy, meringue-like head with good retention and dense lacing.

S: Orange, lime and white grapefruit, light overall intensity — does not jump out of the glass

T: Flavor is a small tick up but still underwhelming with an orange tang flavor with a bit of grassy, hop vegetal note in the finish.

M: Thin and a bit watery with a slight hop astringency in the finish which is dry. Light body — a bit like boldly flavored orange Kool-Aid.

O: I have really liked Barrier’s other IPAs I have tried, but this one doesn’t really get the job done for me. The huge head with the lousy feel makes me wonder if they threw a ton of wheat and/or oats in and expected that to provide all the body. It didn’t work. The concept of an orangey session IPA sounds good, but this one is too thin to go back to again and again.