Ghost Hits
Fiddlehead Brewing Company

Had this at the end of the New England trip in October 2019. Wasn't even planning on going here, but hey when you see a brewery sign on the road when you're traveling. . .

Soft yellow hazy pour with 1/3" white head. Mild citrus meets orange julius lactose vanilla bean notes. Its enjoyable, but also fear inducing as I'm hoping this isn't gonna be one of those sweet milkshake adjunct laden pale ales.

Taste was good, still hit all those vanilla mild sugar notes without going aggro about it. Smoothes the bitterness out quite a bit, if you're into that, I'm not a huge fan of that move, but the score has to reflect the deft hand they used in recipe and execution here. You like them orange creamsicle bars? Its somewhere between the Orange Julius and that. Probably not something I would square 4 or 6 cans of away, but also something I would drink again. Well done stuff that isn't up my alley.

 

a very new school hoppy beer here, done with lactose and vanilla, and while it is sweet, its not forced, overdone, or too desserty to be drinkable, which so many of these are, and really this is about as well done as any such thing could be or has been, we all thought it was money. its soft yellow colored and uniformly hazy from the tap at the brewery. the aroma is as hoppy as it is vanilla forward, i would think citra hops almost certainly have to be in the mix here, but there are likely others too, and mostly all in the dry hop it seems, as there is almost no appreciable bitterness here at all. its juicy and bright with lemon and pineapple notes to it, clean and relatively robust. the vanilla is sweet and natural, a real bean sort of thing, and the lactose isnt too much. i like the flavor is much as the smell, the hops are a bit in front of the other ingredients, and i think the vanilla and lactose bring the hops forward, its not just a late onset hoppiness, but its fruity hoppy throughout the whole drink. i really like the balance here, even with the grain being largely absent from the flavor profile, the milk sugar counters and enhances the hops really nicely, and the whole thing is pillow soft and really drinkable, even people that dont traditionally like hop forward beers would probably like this. notes of marshmallow and canned pineapple close it down, and it ends up a little drier than expected, which is nice. overall an awesome beer, using ingredients i rarely like in this sort of thing. fiddlehead is just killing it right now!

 

 

 

 

 

Very vanilla forward