Chopped Cheese
Other Half Brewing - Center Street

Pours a medium shade of hazy gold with a deep golden core
Smell is a warm, citrus-forward light tropical breeze
Enjoyable blend of warm and sweet citrus but very well balanced, mango, tangerine, grapefruit.
Robust mouthfeel, chewy but not cloying.

 

 

Note: This one was canned on 02-27-26, so it's apparently been reincarnated (BA currently lists it as "Retired").

A: Poured into a Feiden's tulip, the body is hazy golden with a small amount of whitish head. Some lacing on the glass.

S: Definitely citrusy - grapefruit, plus oranges or orange peels.

T: First impression: There's a lot going on here. Ripe oranges, some grapefruit pith on the back end. Mangoes. A hint of other sweet fruit as well - maybe ripe peaches. It all hits the palate like a fruit salad of sweetness, but there's a nice bitter finish that provides excellent overall balance (is that lime?).

M: Zero carbonation, maybe a little *too* slick as a result. Definitely a NE-style IPA with that immensely juicy feel. Pretty soft on the palate, if that makes sense, and lighter in heft - which comes as a surprise given the big flavors here.

O: This is why I keep coming back to Other Half IPAs despite their high price. Every now and again they hit an absolute home run; this is one of those times.

Yet again, this was a beer from Other Half that I bought there and took a while to get around to. With a name like "Chopped Cheese", I was expecting this to be full of lactose or funky cheddar but this was full of deep berry and skunky hops more than anything else. No, it wasn't a bad beer and was on par with their more typical and well-known offerings but I just had to wonder how this got it's moniker!

Canned on 4/11/19 with "MMM...FOOD" written below it, this had a hazy, deep golden hue to it with enough head offsetting the liquid. A few bits of fine, dark sediment settled at the bottom as most of the lacing was in a thick, sea-foamy ring near the top of my pint glass. Lots of earthy blueberry, turbid tropical fruit, and skunky hops were in the nose as the taste contained all of those as well. Bready fullness, pithy citrus, and an underlying orange and berry sickness rounded this out as this was quite heavy-handed beer on the palate. A bit of resin lingered on the palate as this felt like weed and spicy bread once the other flavors subsided a bit.

Not a ton of booze in this as it felt stronger than it was in actuality as the carbonation could have been a bit more present, as well. The presence of the dough allowed this to feel like a sandwich although I never tasted any cheese or felt like this was like something I'd get out of a deli in the Big Apple. It was fun to have once but just too weighted down as it needed more sweetness, carbonation and yes - cheese - for me to fully love. As always, I'm glad I gave it a go since it was up to Other Half's lofty standards!

 

Other Half Chopped cheese

Pours a hazed, saturated yellow color with an unusual big, froth head for this style.

Smells of a fantastic passion fruit leaden nose, together with lime pulp and grapefruits. To create an even more intense exotic fruit profile, the aromas offer additional layers of mango, oranges and unripe bananas. Holy cow, this is great, with an intense, streamlined hop profile, topped off by huge buds of skunky weed.

Has a lighter mouthfeel with a noteable carbonation backbone to it, but unlike many other offerings of this brewery the beer doesn‘t appear overly smooth or creamy, but perfectly fitting for a profound refreshment. Don‘t get me wrong, this is still a very soft drinking beer, yet different to their usual ipas, reminding me just a little more of a west coast ipa.

Tastes of an aqueous softness, featuring a slowly uprising lemon defined bitterness, which gets softened by papaya and riper oranges. Has a grassy, weed defined middlepart, allowing even a hint of doughy toffee malts to cut through, enhancing the beer‘s bitterness by quite a bit. Finishes softer, bitter with a note of white bread dough, ripe papaya and a lasting, old school bitter hop aftertaste with a lighter grass note.

Another great, yet noteably different Ipa from Other Half. This convinces by a unforseen interplay between tropical fruits and skunky, herbal grass. Despite its lighter body this is all about the balance, settling for a calmer, complex hop profile among bready malts and a more present, stony carbonation.

 

 

 

 

L - 1.5 finger dense bright-white head atop a murky yellow body.

S - floral, skunk, citrus.

T - floral hops to start, then grapefruit, orange, and pine. Blueberry. Slight hop burn. Low bitterness. Low sweetness. Low booziness.

F - medium body and carb.

O - wasn’t expecting floral hops. Definitely different.