Amigos
Alvarado Street Brewery

 

Yes, it’s hazy. Cloudy, and delightfully so. Expressive aroma, with pineapple and berry notes. Full-on fruit burst, with more pineapple and sweet berries on each sip. Low bitterness, clean finish, none of that hop burn. This was a good one!

Good head production; OK retention and lacing. Body is pulpy and opaque, with minor visible sediment, and the color of dark ripe peach.

Nose is fairly green, implying fresh herbs. Moderate dankness, with juicy, predominantly tropical, fruit: mango, papaya, pineapple.

Fairly easy at first on the palate, with a growing fruitiness impressing tones of berries, peach, mango, pineapple, tangerine, and mandarin orange. Fairly sweet, and very low bitterness. Fairly mild dankness overall, although it's certainly present.

Wonderfully smooth on the palate, with a crisp, lively bite, a pillowy soft, creamy feel, and a rather long finish that will have you smacking your gums.

This beer punches above its weight class!

Sweet, slightly yeasty, slightly dank hoppy aromatics on this one. Almost a classic ASB style nose...taste follows with a smooth, tropical hoppy bitterness. It is so soft on palate and has such good depth that it drinks like a double. At only 7% ABV, you can have two and not feel like the room is spinning! So crushable...

I tried this on tap a month back, and ended up purchasing a can to see how it aged. Well, here I am, slightly over a month later, pondering the exact same question...How did it age? How does it compare from the can? Let's dive in, Amigos!
L: Pours dark yellow in color. Very hazy in appearance, borderline murky. A simple pour yielded about 2 fingers of head that consisted of large and loosely packed white bubbles that didn't stick around for the party. Lacing is nonexistent. Looks like a nice juicy NEIPA.
S: What I smell is grapefruit, apricot, mango and peach. Yeast is also evident. Hops are lemongrassy and somewhat muted compared to other ASB offerings. It is a good smelling beer in all honesty.
T: Honestly, this is great. Tons of pithy citrus flavor. Loads of orange, grapefruit and lemon. The kind of citrus that reminds you of something cooked with a citrus zest, such as meringue pie. The finish is mango, peach, grapefruit and lime. There is a nice bitter complexity as well, that seems to balance the juiciness of the beer. Yeast undertones present throughout.
F: Light in weight and light to medium in body. Carbonation flirts along the line of moderate to high, leaning more on the high side.
O: A stellar beer. I liked it a lot on tap, and am enjoying it even more from the can a month later. ASB knows how to make a proper NEIPA with WC vibes. I am very grateful to have tried. Cheers!

Poured into a Teku. Very hazy/turbid with a bright yellow-golden color. Small white head. Bright citrus and floral aroma. The taste had dankness along with a juicy citrus profile. There was some astringency on the finish with some hop burn. Medium body with a soft feel and fair bitterness as well. Would like to revisit in a few weeks, as the astringency might settle out - the can was 10 days old.

Update 6/28/19, this week's release - feel is much better, smooth & creamy without the lasting burn or bitterness.

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Canned 1/22/19, consumed 1/31/19

Poured very hazy & cloudy/murky yellowish orange, really small head that fully dissipated as fast as can be, no retention at all, pretty much no lacing either. Looks like Tropicana orange juice. I do like how full & murky ASB hazies look.

Very bright, juicy, citrus fruit hop aroma & fruity yeast ester notes as well - nice, enticing blend.

Taste is citrus juicy but there is quite the bitter, dank peel & herbal flavor accompanying, a slight changeup from the aroma.

Feel is medium, has that nice smooth & creaminess you expect from ASB, good carbonation but some med-high solid lasting bitterness.

Overall, probably just a regular hazy for Alvarado Street but still compares with the better hazies out West. Enjoyed and recommended.

Look: Pours murky bright yellow. An aggressive pour generates about a finger of quickly dissipating white head, made up of large nonuniform bubbles. There is minimal lacing left on the glass. As soon as all head is gone, it actually does look exactly like orange juice in the glass.

Smell: The citrusy hop-juice aroma bursts out of the can immediately after breaking the seal. In a glass though, the smell is not overwhelming. I pick up some yeast on the nose as well.

Taste: Juicy and bitter. I'm picking up a lot of orange peel/zest. There's also a slight amount of hop burn on the back end. Thankfully, not getting too much yeast character in the taste, and what's there is blended well with the hop profile. Nice hoppy burps while drinking too, matching Alvarado's "BURP HOPS" slogan for their hoppy beers.

Feel: Traditional NEIPA. The body is smooth and creamy, there's no apparent alcohol, and the carbonation is medium to high.

Conclusion: Alvarado did well with Amigos. It's not mindblowing in any category but is solid in all of them. At less than a week old, this beer is still pretty "green." Luckily, I enjoy my IPAs like this. I won't hesitate to try this again.

 

 

 

Probably the most MEH IPA from Alvarado of those I have experienced. Pours the standard haze...Aroma is pretty muted...flavor is...?? Barely there. Overall not a great (or even good) beer. Time to redo that recipe.