Stratasphere
Urban Family Brewing Co.

2024 version poured into a Seattle Beer Week pint glass. Pours a hazy, medium orange-gold with a two finger white head with good retention and solid lacing. Aroma of pale malt, citrus and fruit hops, orange, currents, grapefruit, light mixed tropical fruit and dankness. Flavor is pale malt, citrus and dank hops, lemon, grapefruit, green melon and some dankness. Nice grapefruit bitterness in the finish. Medium bodied with light to moderate creaminess. Not quite what I expected; this one listed Strata and Amarillo hops, but I'm getting very little lighter fruit, it's mostly citrus and dankness. The good news is that it a pleasant WC style taste leaning to the citrus side of things. I'm guess the Amarillo is adding a lot of the dominant flavor but there are hints of Strata here too. I did not have high hopes when I saw this listed here as a NE style, and then the pour was solid hazy looking, but this has fine bitterness and good herbal hop aromas and taste; not that complex, but a nice hop bill. Enjoyable fresh hop that had me fooled at first; a hazy done right.

This is an updated version of Stratosphere with an "a" this time. This one is extremely murky and slushy. It certainly tastes like a fresh hop brew, but so acidic and astringent it seems more like a NEIPA. But then it's also very bitter, and the grainy taste adds to the rough edge. Aroma is decent, with a melon and pine scent. This makes me think why I didn't care much for the wet hop brews in past years, but there are so many others that are much less harsh. From the 16 oz can dated 9/20/23.