Big Door Prize
La Cumbre Brewing Co.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

without question the best ipa of any persuasion that i had in albuquerque! if you dont know what mosaic tastes like, this is it, a single hopped double ipa i believe, the absolute purest essence of mosaic i have seen since i literally picked them wet in the fields of yakima, ripped them apart with my fingers, and stuffed them up my nose. a full hearty sniff of this hazy pale golden brew yields the same intense results, truly vibrant and fresh mosaic hops, and an awful lot of them. none of the cat pee thing, none of the canned pineapple character, none of the narrow spectrum or too soft qualities that i have critiqued it for in this context before, its bold and even zesty to me, white grapes and lemongrass and mango, lemon, and mandarin, so incredible, and its all there in the flavor too! the grain base it pretty mild for a beer in this style, but it finds a nice grounded balance and fluffy texture, something kind of starchy in here extending this one, smoothing it out. i like how intense the mosaic is though, its its full self here and thats pretty amazing. i also like it having some real bitterness, which it never seems to get enough credit for being capable of. this is as good as any hoppy beer out there right now, and perhaps the best i have ever had from these guys, and if you know their work, thats a hugely strong endorsement...

Pours beautiful orange with coating lace. Light sweet citrusy aroma. Citrus peel flavor dominates, grassy and a bit dank around the edges and a slight malt sweetness. Nice semi slick feel. Nicely done as always by La Cumbre.

 

 

Leftpaw flew into town yesterday and brought some of these beers with. Very impressed, even with his talking this up (better than anything Revision makes) type of hype. Nonetheless, here is your standard hazy yellow ipa appearance with a thin 2/5" white head on the top. We were out on the golf course and I wasn't even trying to smell this, but right away just popping the top, crash, boom, massive Mosaic only aromatics jump out, dank like Nelson but with an apricot and peach like juiciness that makes up this iteration of Mosaic. Phenomenal aroma.

Taste is amazing as well, low bitterness, high juiciness. Plenty of those apricot fuzzy notes, love it. Slight galaxy like pineapple feels on it too. Hides the alcohol amazingly well. This is just a phenomenal world class beer, they might be late to the haze game, but with their west coast pedigree game, it should be of no surprise that they crushed this one.

La Cumbre finally came through and delivered a quality NE/Hazy IPA, color is a burnt yellow with medium-light carbonation. The nose is the best part of this beer, awesome mosaic hops on display, but more juice forward than garlic - excellent. Tastes great, again juicy pineapple and white grape, bitterness on low. Mouthfeel is soft and light, nothing like their norm this is a good change (hopefully) going forward. Overall an excellent brew from my local watering hole, well done LC. Took a few years but this delivers!