Kill Your Idles: Blood Orange
Idle Hands Craft Ales

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Canned on 07/28/17.
This was poured into a stemmed pilsener glass.
The appearance was a nice looking hazy burnt yellow/orange color with a finger's worth of white foamy head that slid off pretty quick to leave some slight lace running here and there.
The aroma brings in some sweet to sour and tart blood orange pulpiness playing with a little bit of sweet cream and a nice sweet to tart grassy hop contour in the background.
The flavor takes the prior mentioned aromatics and pulls in a light acidic taste to compensate with a little bit of sticky sweet cream to pull down some of the acidity. Aftertaste brings together some sweet to tart to semi-sour orange pulp and rind-like bitterness rolling over some of those creamy sweet features.
The mouthfeel was almost medium bodied with a fair sessionability about it. Carbonation felt good. ABV felt appropriate. Acidic harshness seems scaled back due to the lactose involvement which is nice.
Overall, it's a very well put together beer but I don't see it as a Berliner Weisse as it's missing the "sour-ed wheat" features. I'd still have again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my first experience with the KYI series by Idle Hands, and I'm glad to finally join in. Honestly, this line has a genius name and a cool concept... kettle-soured ales clocking in at about 5-and-a-half percent that feature rotating fruit selections and lactose as adjunct ingredients. I'm totally down with this, considering IH has been doing quite good work lately in the MA canned beer scene.

Pours a solid and opaque medium-orange color with a thin ring of head that lasts pretty much permanently. Though a small bit of foam built up upon my initial pour, it faded so quickly that I don't feel the need to count it as part of the overall appearance. Love the color and true opacity going on here, though.

Nose is slightly mineral-forward with some solid orange, tangerine, blood orange, berry and crisp/dank hoppy notes. Kind of has a vanilla aspect to it too, almost like a creamsicle in some ways. Not a very complex beer to me at this point, but the flavor is quite a bit different; more intense and flavorful than expected, for sure.

I get some tropical fruit on the palate which I honestly did not expect... pineapple, mango and guava kick around here among the sweeter-leaning citrus notes, dragonfruit and light grapefruit-like rind notes. Acidity is playful and balanced by the lactose addition, which I appreciate for sure. When I saw the label here and read "contains lactose" I kind of cringed because I've had some beers recently that have suffered from the addition of this unfermentable sugar. It's kind of difficult to apply, and it has to be used in measured amounts or the whole beer can be totally muddled. Happy to say it works out well in this recipe, as it provides a nice smoothness and foil to the otherwise untamed acidity that results as a combination of the kettle-souring technique IH uses and the fruit adjunct itself. Great flavor here, and very true to the blood orange addition.. High marks!

Feel is very solid as well. Though this beer is a bit stronger than a lot of kettle-soured beers these days, it retains a lighter body overall. The lactose addition is noticeable especially as the beer warms a bit, losing any of the crisp gose-like minerality it may have had earlier on when it was chilled, but this fact actually does not seem to detract from the brew. In fact, it kind of helps it stand out. With the help of a sweeter finish, this beer's acidic mid-palate is able to access some unique flavors and distance itself from some other trendy fruited sours out there. Very interesting stuff here. Hope they can more of them. Though the price here was a bit much for repeat buys (not a "crush-worthy" Summer beer in all honesty), I'm glad to have tried it and will keep my eye out for future iterations.