Pour Some Sugar
Monkish Brewing Co.

 

 

 

 

 

Despite the moniker, this brew is anything but sweet.

Fresh-squeezed oranges, juicy yellow grapefruit, and light Welch's white grape juice is primarily evident on the nose. A hint of zesty lemon follows, with a soothing mellow McVitie's Digestive/oatmeal cookie-like backdrop neatly encasing all the previous aromas into a nice figurative aroma basket. Yellow grapefruit and Digestive cookie persist until the end of the drinking experience.

We're talking about Monkish and de Garde here, so there's really no need to tell you that the palate matches the nose to the T. What I really love about this beer is how the oats creates the perfect backdrop for all the flavors to spring out and express themselves to their heart's content; it's like a soothing dry flavor safety net which will catch any flavor that drops off the beer and sort of prevent them from spiraling into a nosedive.

It's inevitable that with every sip you take of an extremely well-hopped beer that you'll perceive less and less of those flavors as you make your way down the glass, but not with this one. With every sip, you get the full hop charge, and then oats kinda brings you back on your feet; any flavor you didn't pick up your last sip, no problem, the oats reprime your taste buds right back so they don't get fried with sip after sip of double dry hopped madness.

The mouthfeel is an odd dichotomy of the usual thick and chewy Monkish DIPA, and a curious cider-like spritzy backdrop resulting from the dextrose addition. Medium carbonation, creamy initial mouthfeel, but not quite slick and velvety as some of the other flaked-oats induced hazebros. I'm tempted to say that this almost feels refreshing to a degree, but then some of the residual oats that surface later on put a hamper to that statement and quash the idea in its entirety.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Happy Holidays release from Monkish! With an awesome de Garde collab.

Pours a hazy golden yellow, thinner than most Monkish beers and lots of effervescent bubbles rising all over. Quickly dissipating head of white foam.

Straight up orange juice nose, with a piney afterthought that lingers.

I love the direction they took here. Full of citrus per usual, but with distinct hoppy, piney qualities that really compliment the familiar juice bomb characteristics of Monkish beer so well. I’m also getting that added sugar with a lingering sticky sweetness.

Smooth, effervescent, and refreshing. As mentioned, thinner than most Monkish beers, but it is in no way detrimental. Fabulous.