Cruising Gravel
Side Project Brewing

 

its really cool that these guys got together to make a beer, definitely some of the more hyped up and sought after breweries in saint louis, so rad of them to combine forces on this one. it is predictably a hazy ipa thats full of dry hopped character and delicious, no real surprise there. it is getting a little hard to differentiate between the good ones of these, like, they seem to be more and more made to a certain standard, and the differences between the good ones are down to nuance, especially with a combination of hops like this, so familiar, so delicious, but so well known now, its nothing new at all here, as much as i like the beer. a nice pale sunny color to it, uniformly cloudy with a huge active white head on it bubbling away like its still fermenting in my glass. strong citrus and tropical notes to the hops, pineapple and tangerine and lemon, juicy as can be, insanely fresh, but ive been here before. simple cereal malt base likely features some raw wheat, its nicely basic, sturdy but dry, a little starchy, out of the way. the hops taste as good as they smell, and i like the beer a lot on the whole because it has some balance, still has some bitter at the end, and is just of a higher quality than so many of these out there right now. i am fatiguing of the style a little bit personally at this point, but this is a great beer through and through. how could it not be with these two operations on it!

I have to admit that, though I've visited Side Project, I haven't actually had a single one of their IPAs before. I was quite happy to rectify this at a recent share!

Cruising Gravel is a light, soft, juicy, delicious IPA - it pours an attractive gold with a very light head, and it's about as fragrant as Julius is supposed to be. In a marathon of multiple IPAs, I still recall this one quite fondly. It's memorable and very good.