Moody Lovers
Refined Fool Brewing Co.

650 mL bottle from the brewery; no packaging date and served slightly chilled.

Pours a muddy, hazy pale apricot yellow colour, supporting one finger of loose, soapy white head that fades within a couple of minutes; it leaves behind a frothy collar and filmy cap, along with a thin band of lacing. The nose is fruity and inviting, comprised of a range of hop notes such as pineapple, grapefruit, lime and nectarine, with hints of pear and a subtle suggestion of pine needles.

A reasonably tasty, hop-forward beer: it looks the part of a New England IPA, but the flavours are more along the lines of a 'traditional' IPA, with a moderately bitter finish. Light, wheaty, grainy pale malt sweetness underneath, with stone fruit, pineapple and grapefruit figuring in strongly at first. Pithy, piney, earthy hop bitterness develops towards the finish, followed by a piney aftertaste with lingering hints of grapefruit and stone fruit that fade within a moment or two. Medium in body, with assertive carbonation that remains quite prickly throughout the course of the glass; its tiny bubbles have a palate-scrubbing quality, resulting in a very crisp mouthfeel. Decent drinkability - finishing off this bomber shouldn't prove difficult for most hopheads.

Final Grade: 3.80, a respectable B+. Refined Fool's Tiny Batch Series has produced beers of all sorts of styles, but it does seem to have a strong predilection towards IPAs. Moody Lovers is not a bad one, not at all, but its appearance is practically misleading, leading you to expect an NEIPA, which this beer is simply not. Far from outstanding, but enjoyable enough to toss back anyhow - I'd say it's worth sampling, but as an expensive, small batch beer from a style that is best consumed fresh, you'd better hop to it.