Noisy Minor Echo Chamber NEIPA
Fortitude Brewing Company

Noisy Minor (aka Fortitude Brewing Company, aka Mt Tamborine Brewing… well it was anyway) have really landed on a winner here with this Echo Chamber NEIPA: 1) It’s a NEIPA, and NEIPAs ALWAYS SELL [sidebar: I’ve come up with a handy acronym for this: NEIPAAS, which is pronounced “nee-paas” like a sheep] 2) It’s in a can, and cans are clearly better than glass if your beer wants to highlight an ingredient that is highly susceptible to a chemical reaction when UV light is applied to it, i.e. hops, 3) Said can is half a litre and brightly coloured canary-yellow, so that a) I wont finish it too soon, and b) I can see it in the bottle shop’s craft fridge. All of which puts Noisy Minor in the running for a “Doc’s Most Improved Brewer of the Year Award” yay!

Poured from a 500ml canary-yellow can into a nonic pint.

A: Hazed amber body with a thin but dense white head and little splotches of lace inside the glass. Not the prettiest NEIPA then, bit too amber-coloured, not enough murk, and a minuscule head/lace… seen worse though. 6/10.

S: Rich and piney with an earthy overtone, bubble-gum/juicy fruit notes, floral scent, hints of stone-fruit/citrus. This is more like a whopping great West-Coast style American IPA than a NEIPA in aroma, however it’s the flavour that really counts: will it be more like a glass of juice, with a well defined sweet slant and minimal bitterness? That’s what a good NEIPA is, but as Hop Nation has shown with Jedi Juice – sometimes rules are meant to be broken. 8/10.

T: Forward with hop characters of: piney/earthy hops, mingling with a light biscuit base, touches of floral/stone-fruit character and a sweet/mild bubble-gum note in the finish… all sounds rather well and good, bit of a West-meets-New-England IPA (like Jedi Juice), but then *DUN-DUNN* you notice a sense of something unnatural, like the flavours have been watered-down just ever so slightly. 7/10.

M: Medium bodied with a light but dense carbonation and a thin feel compared to other NEIPAs I’ve encountered. 7/10.

D: It’s a real distraction with this 7.2% ABV NEIPA that doesn’t go away as you drink it – that diluted-beer feel, whereas the last Noisy Minor I reviewed (Bad Wolf) was an absolute corker, this is… well it’s not bad per-say, just lacking where it counts (in the old flavour department). It begs the question: Should Noisy Minor stick to the ethos “bigger (ABV) is better”? Or try to refine their lighter brews further? My personal view is the former here. This NEIPA needs work. 7/10.

Food match: I’m going to be lazy and play the pizza card here: BAM! There I did it.