Cactus Palace
Other Half Brewing - Center Street

 

Picked this up a few weeks back at Other Half in Brooklyn, as I loved the City Slicker collaboration beers between this two. While this was categorized as an Imperial IPA on here, this could have been placed in a category by itself, as it was an Imperial Fruit / Vegetable beer because of the presence of the prickly pear cactus. Needless to say, I never had anything from Other Half that was quite like this!

This poured like pink grapefruit juice but a bit more muddled, dank, and intriguing. I have no idea what the juice of a prickly pear cactus would look like, but I'm guessing that it would be similar to this as this looked very exotic. The head was moderate as it had a few noticeable bubbles at the top and the lacing left behind consisted of a thin ring near the top of my pint glass with a few sudsy hints of rings the rest of the way down. Lots of prickly pear cactus, white wine, white wheat, and exotic jack and star fruit in the nose as the taste had some bright corn, deep tangerine, subtle lime tang, and sticky agave and mango pulp to round this out. Very bright and slick, this had a nice stickiness that lingered on my lips and a tortilla and enchilada-like feel to it that made this a relatively easy sipper.

That was in spite of it's heft and indeed, I could feel the booze take hold well before finishing this off. The carbonation was light but the body was nicely balanced and the hops complemented the cactus and wheat quite nicely. Dated 2/12 with "RIP CHICK" written below it, this was the best of both worlds, or breweries as I should put it. This was a ton of fun and further proof that these two need to get together more often. Having an label that suited the liquid on the inside was an added bonus!

 

L: pours with thin head and pale pink hazy hue
S: cotton candy, tropical fruits, prickly pear cactus cooler
T: sweet, fruity with a tang. Nice clean grain to compliment the prickly pear
F: a little light on the carbonation for my taste.
O: great beer, never had something with prickly pear before. Highly recommend. I think a higher level of carbonation and a slight decrease in the sweetness and alcohol level would improve this beer greatly.