Lustro
Omnipollo

 

Look: It pours yellow and has decent clarity. It has a white head with moderately low head retention.

Smell: It has strong tropical fruit aromas. There are also pineapple notes with some resinous qualities. There are low levels of sweet malt in the background.

Taste: There are tropical flavor with pineapple and some pine. There are some resinous qualities. There are some grainy sweet elements low in the background.

Feel: It has a medium body.

Overall, the flavors don't quite mess out through the finish. This leaves the flavors a bit muddied.

One of the more subtle beers I've had. Give it a little room temp, and those subtleties become more discernible. Bready nose sends up a bready malt presence. The subtleties are in the hop play: some generic "tropical notes" yield lemon, mango, and pineapple hints. Ends pretty refreshing.

 

Doing all 4s because I don't want to write a thesis just want to keep track of what I'm drinking.

 

 

 

 

 

didnt love this one ... tons of grapefruity and green bitter flavors that i found astringent and overpowered the other flavors. maybe im drinking too many soft and creamy IPAs these days, but this one ended up tasting almost plasticy and medicinal in its bitterness. some hints of spicy pineapple perhaps. needs more malty sweetness to balance.

From a 6 week old 12 oz can, into a tulip. Pours a glowing peachy orange with a 1 inch loose and foamy aspirin-white head that subsides quickly with little lacing. Nose is very juicy, with both orchard and tropical notes, that border on the overripe: apricot, mango, pineapple, maybe some orange. Taste: juicy as befits the nose...also a little tangy breadiness, that is kind of different. Good and something a little different, even if I miss a little hoppy prickliness and bite. Mouthful is fine, but kind of in between a couple different styles, neither wet nor dry, neither pillowy or prickly, etc. substantial feel, but the abv, not too heavy.

Bought a 4-pack of these and don’t regret it.

 

LOOKS: A hazy, burnt orange, with a small head that tapers quickly to a ring. Mild lacing down the glass.
AROMA: Lots of citrus. Orange, lemon, and grapefruit.
TASTE: Cracker bread malt, and loads of citrus. Mild astringency.
FEEL: Full carbonation, medium full body, and quite dry.
OA: Pretty nice, loads of citrus.

 

L: Opaque yellow with a small white head. Decent retention. Looks like orange juice.

S: Sweet, ripe to overripe apricot and mango, pineapple--smells so overripe, almost rotten fruit. Peach, tangerine, and honeydew melon in there, too, all overripe.

T: Very ripe and sweet mango, apricot, and peach. Some tangerine, orange and pineapple. Soft doughy malt. More rotten tropical fruit. Somewhat buttery? Is this diacetyl?

F: Medium-plus, creamy, good carbonation. Smooth.

O: A really solid, fruity IPA that seems perhaps slightly flawed. Otherwise pretty good.

 

 

 

The CANQuest (tm) has taken a turn for the Omnipollo & frankly, it just feels right! I have been a yuge fan of the Swedish Bikini Team since their rollout in the late-1980s & Cousin Colby won an Ikea-stylee challenge during PHL Beer Week years ago. This beer sounds like an infomercial product: "Try new Lustro from Omnipollo! It will put a shine on yer mug like never before!"

From the CAN: "Imperial India Pale Ale".

I was intrigued by the black label with its glowing yellow spotlight & as I readied for the Crack!, I put on Tom Waits' "The Piano Has Been Drinking" with the line, "... the spotlight looks like a prison break …" I performed a slow, gentle Glug as things began to shift left & sideways, forcing me to correct my aim as it ocCANurred. I CANducted an in-glass swirl to raise just under two fingers of dense, foamy, rocky, off-white head with great retention that seemed to refuse to fall until I threatened it with a flamethrower, at which time it gave up and retreated, leaving a ton of lacing in its wake. Color was a hazy Yellow-Gold (SRM = 4 - 5). The spotlight was brighter! The nose reached up & grabbed me by the nose, threatening to drown me in its tropical fruitiness. Man, whichever hops they employed in this one, they were fer sher from south of the Equator!

Seven Degrees South was the name of the house band when I was stationed on Diego Garcia & the singer was a buxom redhead named Tina Fiedler. 8=O She was one hot number, lemme tellya. Built like she had been drawn by Wally Wood in his heyday. Ah, these digressions …

Back in the glass, the beer was beckoning me like a siren. Or the bottle in "Alice in Wonderland" - "Drink Me!" I was a poor host to ignore my guest this way so I CANplied. Mouthfeel was medium, light for the style, but slick, like grease on my tongue. I couldn't take 'hold of it as it wiggled & wormed its way across my tongue! In the meantime, the tropical fruit flavors really became assertive, especially as coconut began to make an appearance. It tasted like a bag of dried tropical fruits! I usually use the analogy of Tropical Fruit Life Savers, but that implies CANdy where this was actual fruit.

I guess that I should be grateful that cell phones & cameras did not exist in 1987. We were berthed at NavSta Subic Bay, P.I. & I had been told that the real action happened off of Magsaysay Drive, out in the Barrio, Barrio Baretto, to be precise. Our venue of choice was Uncle Sam's All-American Club where the beer was guaranteed hot, the girls guaranteed cold & you were guaranteed to get yer a** kicked for any CANplaints. This was in my boxing phase, so I was lean & mean, young, dumb & fulla c**, if you get my drift. My girl was Miriam, a short, wiry gal about my height & around my weight so that we made a good fit. Once night, all of the rooms were taken & since neither of us were shy, we made it in a hammock on the empty dance floor as we were showered with pesos, beer & fruit. Word got around the ship & on the piers & so we became a couple that people would pay to watch. Ha! Our last performance before a) we got back underway & b) Shore Patrol tried to bust us for flagrant vice was a surprise for me. Mama-san & Miriam worked to fashion an entire outfit for Miriam out of fruit, Carmen Miranda-style! The idea was that I would chow down until she was nekkid & then the hammock show would be on. Understand that this was like raw meat to a lion - I had almost completely eschewed meat at this point & was subsisting almost solely on FF&V. I was on her like a vacuum cleaner, sucking up all of the fruit as she writhed & laughed. Soon, we began in earnest as the remaining fruit was crushed & the juice becoming a sticky mess that glued us together. Just then, the raid occurred & I was left running down the road, barefoot, bare-assed, covered in fruit & pesos, waving down a pedicab. The Marines at the gate were nonplussed, but my shipmates had seen it all before, so as I crossed the brow & requested permission to come aboard, it was granted as the Messenger of the Watch (MOOW) escorted me to my rack. I was elated the next morning when one of my shipmates, ET3 Kirk Rake, handed me my liberty clothes, including my intact wallet! Mama-san & Miriam were heartbroken, of course, but we got underway that afternoon as I was counseled on the errors of my many ways. 8=)

Now, where was I? Oh, yes. Tropical fruit, but not "artificial" or "natural fruit flavors" both of which come straight from a chem lab. No, this was hops-driven, a chemical process all its own, but it tasted like actual tropical fruits, not CANdy. It is fortunate that it is a DIPA as the style guidelines are a bit more lenient. The fruitiness in lieu of bitterness is not considered a bad thing & the haziness vs clarity is also allowable. As to personal taste, the evoking of memories is never a bad thing. Finish was in that grey area between semi-sweet & semi-dry. I would have it no other way. YMMV.