Wharf Rat (2025)
Alvarado Street Brewery

Can poured into an Alvarado Street Brewery Willi Beecher glass

A: Pours hazy golden amber with a frothy eggshell white head that settles to a firm layer and laces beautifully.

S: Lively ripe citrus, mix of exotic, tropical, and stone fruit, plus red berries and a little melon, resinous pine, faintly dank spicy herbal notes, biscuity malt, and caramel sweetness.

T: Fresh citrus, orange, tangerine, lime, and grapefruit, exotic, tropical and stone fruit, guava, mango, pineapple, peach, apricot, gooseberry, strawberry, white grape, lychee, and a little melon, resinous pine, slightly dank spicy herbal and earthy notes, biscuity malt, and caramel sweetness.

M: A little on the fuller side of medium body, moderate carbonation, soft on the palate.

O: That hop combo gives you a little bit of everything, all very nicely balanced, and built on a super soft body. This one's a winner!

Had Wharf Rat poured from pint can, bottom stamped "CANNED ON 03/13/2025" and "CALIFORNIA DREAMIN," into nonic pint.

Pours opaque tangerine push-up or fruit smoothie, with 2-finger off-white head, with excellent retention, pulling a thick coating of (barely differentiable rings of) lace down the glass. Huge fresh lime and moderate dank aromas off pour, then a little peach aroma joins, and also some pineapple and mild melon aromas as warms. On tasting, begins sweet orange and sweeter pineapple, over an almost chewably thick, citrus pulp body, with lots of berry following, before crispy lime brightens and lightens it up (a bit), and carries into a mouth-filling, orange citrus, rather hop-bitter and somewhat alcohol-warming finish.

It hasn't been that long since I declared that California brewers don't get NEIPAs, and some major ones still don't, but Alvarado is once again an outlier, with this huge, hugely hazy, fruity, dank and bitter (enough) milkshake (unless that's a bad thing) DIPA.