Quadruple Dobis
Cellarmaker Brewing Co.

Booz is there despite being fresh and served cold. You get the typical citra notes you expect, pineapple, citrus, etc. I am not getting the creaminess others have described. It is above average, but it is not up there with the other heavy hitters from California.

 

 

Sweet orange-tangerine citrus and subdued citrus boozy nose on this one! Taste follows with a citrus hoppy and orange-grapefruit citrus bitter finish. I mean, for this big of an ABV, this drinks dangerously smooth. As it warms, though, some gin-like booziness starts to make it self known on the backend. This is good stuff!

Thanks to David for this one.
Light fizzy head, little lacing, slear orange color

Nose tons of fruit, loads tropical, citrus, pineapple, papaya, etc

Taste sweet candy malts, sticky, big citrus, tropical, pineapple, candied pineapple mostly, little musty dank

Mouth med bod, decent but lighter creamy carb, touch of alcohol

The name "citra" seems kind of misleading in its purportedly pure and super-saturated form if Cellarmaker is to be believed. Whereas most people seem to attribute the hop with more ascorbic fruits associated with the letters "c," "i," "t," and "r," this unabashed, ruthlessly unapologetic use of the popular yet still egregiously expensive hop seems to yield flavors and notes more in line with pineapple, lychee jelly, and dank grass.

I just realized I pretty much included my entire review in that last sentence (Issue Statement). This is what too much IRAC does to your brain.

Sticky sweet canned pineapple, orange zest, lychee jelly, and light caramel explode out of the can like fireworks exploding after falling out of a brief case of an unsuspecting passenger pushed into a rushing train by a train conductor. The intense pineapple shockwave, accompanied by the 12.8% ABU heat spreads fast into the proximate vicinity and lingers long enough to knock over and unleash a massive flavor scale onto your nose; be careful not to peek your nose too deep into the glass as you pour the beer out or else it may just be the but-for cause of some serious nose hair burn.

Labored Palsgraf metaphors aside, the sensation on the palate tells a similar story, and that story pretty much is that Cellarmaker envisioned creating a beautiful abomination of a beer that would take Citra hops to the limits of its zone of danger; it's like they clocked in an unprecedented amount of hops they wanted to hop the beer with first and then adjusted everything accordingly afterwards.

This is particularly evident with the amount of heat and the carapils (or many of its varieties) sweetness that accompanies every hop-derived note and flavor with each sip. Add the prefix "sweet" before all these descriptors I'm about to throw out and it paints a more accurate picture of how this beer tastes: pineapple jam, marmalade, mangosteen, fresh cut grass, milky caramel.

Despite the intermittent bouts of sweetness, the end result errs on the side of dry, although the booze burn remains mostly unquelled throughout the drinking experience. Medium-bodied, with minimally intrusive carbonation; I wouldn't go so far as to call this creamy, but it does form a thick foamy sensation around your tongue if you let it sit for a bit. Just don't let it sit too long else you may start feeling a burn.
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Pineapple burps and some fire in my throat and belly. That pretty much sums up the beer and my thanksgiving quite aptly.