DDH Juice Bomb
Sloop Brewing

Pours up dingy/murky/hazy light brown on tap.
A decent head with light lacing.
Flavor is of dank pine and citrus and resin,
Tropical fruit flavors are muted, melon hints are subdued. A little bitter and slightly tart.
Enjoyable, but not one of my favorite styles so I hesitate to elaborate too much.

 

 

 

 

Poured into a 13 oz Nordic pint glass, hard to read when it was canned but thinking 2 or 3 weeks max. Pours a very hazy yellow with a half finger sticky white head that leaves thick streaks of lace with solid retention. 4.25

Aroma is tangerine, pineapple, papaya, cantaloupe, and apricot really nice. 4.25

Taste follows tangerine, pineapple, papaya, cantaloupe, and apricot really balanced and juicy. 4.5

Mouthfeel is above average, soft gentle carbonation, not sticky or dry, and at 6.5% it drinks a little closer to 7%, but goes down really easy. 4.5

Overall Sloop never let’s me down, but normally is barely over a 4. This one I would grab a 4 pack without hesitation. Nice big flavor and really well made. 4.25

 

 

 

Couldn't read canning date on bottom - tasted 1/21/21. I was impressed by this brew - I've been drinking a lot of Tree House recently, and this wasn't quite up to Tree House standards, but it was close! Nice bright orange, hazy appearance. Appealing aroma, although not bursting with flavor. Similar with the taste - decently juicy with some dankness to go with it, but just not popping like an elite NE-IPA. But I'd be perfectly happy drinking this if it was available - and it's got a good amount of flavor for the relatively mild 6.5% ABV.

 

 

 

 

Excited to finally start getting a ton more Sloop in MA and NH thanks to them brewing at Smuttynose in Hampton, NH in addition to their NY production facility! I can't read the born-on date on this can, but I know the store I procured it from just got it in stock over the last couple days so it's likely a few weeks old at absolute mose.

So, Juice Bomb is a great beer. I first had it a couple years ago when Sloop first started seeing distro around my area, and at the time I believe it was one of maybe two or three IPAs that we could get from these well-liked NY based brewers. Now it seems like I see a ton every week or so, and they're generally all quite good (especially the specific hop focused Bomb variants). The pour on this one is quite a bit like the original, with perhaps even better lacing. It builds up with a couple fingers of pretty dense chalk-white head with good legs and surface coverage that lasts for a few minutes before sinking down to a half-finger. The body is, of course, very much an opaque NEIPA with tons of haze. Good looking stuff if you're into that.

The nose is less juicy than I thought it would be at first, as it really rushes forwards with a big hit of chive and green onion with some superbly-detailed grassy dankness before the brunt of the tropical qualities really make their presence known. As it opens up, DDHJB starts to come out with mango and passion fruit along with some tangerine and yuzu. Still, though, this is way more oniony than I ever thought it'd be! I like that element when it's done well in IPAs of this caliber, and this does pull it off but I'm just surprised by how apparent that aspect is, I guess. There's a good amount of complexity here, but the tropical citrus and oniony overtones fight for dominance in a way that is both frustrating and satisfying by turns, though I guess it kind of depends on what you're looking for, expecting to get, and what you actually want from something like this.

On the tongue, this is a bit better. Yeah, it's yeasty and very heavy for a 6.5% NEIPA, but the hop saturation is quite well-done. I get a lot of ruby red grapefruit, tart lemony undertones, a bit of wheaty malt, cereal-like graininess, mango, and guava with light hints of the chive from the nose with a hit of dankness in the finish. Lots going on, and it's all pretty satisfying. I'm not sure it's really as good as Juice Bomb proper, but it's definitely also kind of different, and I recall feeling the same about the comparison between Simcoe Bomb and DDH Simcoe Bomb. DDH can really alter some properties of hops, I suppose, even if the rest of the beer and the process behind it are similar. The feel is nice and plush for the most part, but there's a little vegetal/green hop burn toward the finish especially as I get to the second half of the can. That said, this is very worth a drink!

 

 

16oz. can into a Brooklyn Brewery snifter.

Color is a muddy grapefruit. Nose is citrus, starfruit and cane sugar. Aromatic and bright. Beer opens grapefruit, citrus and mango. Super juicy on the palate with a particular resiny bitterness. More citrus and passionfruit in the middle with cane sugar and clementine at the finish. Dry, juicy finish. Body is light with moderate carbonation. Smooth and soft on the palate and goes down bone dry with a sticky finish. Incredibly drinkable.

Very solid. This one's better than the original. Worth trying.