Lupzilla
Idle Hands Craft Ales

 

Always cool to be the very first rating and review for a beer, especially one from such an awesome brewery. Idle Hands has come really far over the past few years, beginning with developing one of the best lager programs in the Northeast and rounding out with their sour and barrel-aged stuff that have been coming out pretty consistently lately. Though this beer is not BA, it is still a sour, and a hop-focused one at that!

Pours a straw-yellow color with some golden highlights if held to light. A thin ring of head develops rather quickly upon my initial decanting, sinking down to about a quarter-finger when all's said and done. No lace or legs here... pretty static looking beer, but I do appreciate the color.

Smells very tropical and juicy with a hint of rustic funk in there. Slight bacteria-driven sourness and acidity is present, but I mostly get elements of orange and pineapple with some strong grapefruit and mango suggestions. I'm interested in the fact that this was apparently bottled in the middle of last year and we're just starting to see it on shelves now. It seems to still be quite a bit hoppy, but not quite on the "IPA" or even the "dry-hopped sour" side of things, but they do make it a point to talk about the El Dorado hops used here. I've found ED hops to have a very delicate complexion to them, kind of like Azacca but with a bit more tropical fruit. That comes across here quite apparently, with waves of peach, apricot and white grape marrying perfectly with citrus and the more delicate mango-like touches.

Fruit salad flavor profile with a bright and crisp acidity right off the bat. Strong white wine, guava, gooseberry and melon intermingle with some stone fruit and chalky yeastiness. Kind of a blurry aspect to how the mixed culture interacts with the hops... it's a bit muddled, honestly, but at least the flavors I can pick out are well done. More rustic-ness and a bit of funk toward the finish. Bright and crisp mouthfeel with heavy-handed initial carbonation following through to a dry and refreshing finish. Cool stuff here. It's not incredible, but it's a nice little drink that I hope they come out with again, perhaps with different kinds of hops to really coax out slight differences from the mixed culture.