People Power
Finback Brewery - Glendale

 

Pours a hazy medium straw color, ample foamy head, good lacing. Aroma is sweet citrus: lemon, orange, grapefruit, and a nice light dose of dankness. Flavor is sweet - I assume lactose, light dankness, citrus is lemon, orange. Creamy texture, medium bodied. Overall a delicious lactose DIPA.

8/6/20
16 oz can dated 7/10/20
4.25 rating

 

Can from the brewery in Queens during 2020 COVID pause. Pours a mildy hazy gold with fluffy white head and nice lacing, smell is melon, papaya, and cotton candy, taste follows the nose with papaya, melons, melon, and hints of orange juice concentrate and dank icing, feel is medium to full bodied. Papaya cotton candy.

 

hazy ipa is obviously their thing here at finback, they make or have made about a million of them, and while sometimes they are not all that different, they are almost always amazing. case in point, this one right here, softly hazy, white frothy headed, mostly dry hopped, simcoe and amarillo, we have all heard that before somewhere, but this one is just better than most of them, near masterful execution, is round feeling without being expressly malty, the combination of the two hops is awesome, they highlight the best parts of each other yet retain their unique identities in aroma and in flavor, and it ends u-p being really fresh and easy drinking for what it is, nice balance from the starchy malt and the bitterness thats allowed to exist. a cryo sort of concentrated hoppiness too, almost candied for a second, but never sweet, melon and pine, fresh as can be, simple beer really all said and done, but of an extremely high quality that others should aspire to. i keep being impressed by these guys every time i track down one of their beers!

 

 

I bought a reasonably-priced ($16) four-pack of this a couple weeks ago to take up on a lake trip with friends. One of the cans survived, and it's now in my glass to be reviewed. This is a very solid IPA from Finback that does very little to blow my mind but definitely pulls its weight in a session. I also learned while doing some research about this beer that proceeds from sales go to the ACLU, which is a pretty awesome thing to do.

Pour is a nearly opaque orange color with a thick head of foamy bubbles reaching three fingers pretty handily. The lace it leaves behind is spectacular and consistent, with frothy islands sticking around even after lace is formed. Good legs, too. Just a very impressive pour here. Good job, Finback!

This IPA is dry-hopped with Simcoe and Amarillo hops, which are poised to deliver a really pungent blast of floral, pine and grapefruit notes. The nose here is a little more muted than I would like (or, perhaps I'm really just used to DDH beers by Finback, which is the more likely possibility), but it really does have some nice elements of grapefruit rind and pine resin with a slight floral backing. Slight dankness and earthy, sticky notes come to the fore as the beer warms to room temperature, changing the paradigm a little bit.

On the tongue, this is bitter and chewy with equal parts hoppy gusto and malt-laden balance, benefiting from a solid grist of what I can only assume to be pale malt and oats. The floral elements come to the fore in the mid-palate, before the flavors transition to a more citrus-forward homogeneity. This beer finishes with some nice pine notes before closing out with a blend of oat-like chalkiness and more grapefruit. Yeast dominates the closing aspect of this beer, providing closure in a very "NE IPA" way.

The feel is full-bodied and well-carbonated with a really solid balance of malty elements and dry-hop goodness. I think I'm most impressed by how well done this beer is in the "gestalt"... it's more than the sum of its parts, and lends itself both to easy-drinking and to more careful contemplation with similar success rates. I wish I could get more fairly-priced Finback beers, but I'll accept this one as an outlier while hoping for a future in which they are more consistently found!

Great example of a NEIPA. Bottled 7/3/18, opened 8/13/18.

Hazy, fruity, dank, smooth, well-balanced.

 

New England style juicy ipa, fresh and crisp. Tastes like orange juice with notes of apricot.