Deadhead IPA Series: Haze Of The Dead
DESTIHL Brewery

Poured from can to pint pub glass.
Hazy orange color, excellent head and lacing.
8.5% abv, but does not taste like it.
Actually seems pretty light, with a delicate orange flavor.

 

 

 

 

At my lady Pamela's house; canned and chilled, from a 4-pack from my favourite LCBO at The Roundhouse Centre in nearby Windsor. My second beer from the Normal, Illinois brewery.

 

 

 

Sept 4 2024

I haven't tried a new US beer for quite a long time, so I am pretty excited. The pour is very pale with a pretty big head. The nose is heavy on honey and also malt, which is not the best. The malt is in the taste as well, but it doesn't ruin things in a West Coast IPA sort of way. It instead turns mango, peach, kiwi-ish. The after taste is slight bitterness and booziness.
Not bad, but I do prefer some of my go to Toronto and area IPAs. Still. I would try this again.

 

 

 

 

 

473ml can served cold into a chalice. Canned 04/01/23, I'm guessing that's January 4, 2023.

Appearance - Hazy bright golden brew with orange hues. A finger of head is poured and lingers brifely. Nice sopay collar left behind.

Smell - Lots of mango among other citrus with elements of pineapple and grapefruit. Mango is dominant with wheaty backbone.

Taste - Bold mango flavors that are fairly sweet. A little pineapple too then some dank weediness finishes things off at the end. On the boozier side but tastes like you'd expect an 8.5% ABV brew to taste like.

Mouthfeel - Full bodied and fairly juicy in the mouth but then low drying sensation afterwards. Carbonation is pretty low. Thicker than many, there's no misting this for a DIPA.

Overall - Very solid DIPA that's worth a try, especially in these parts where DESTIHL has no foothold.

Pours cloudy gold with a chunky head with excellent retention. The aroma is a tropical fruit salad with tangerine, mango, grapefruit and pineapple notes. The taste is a potent blend of the aforementioned tempered by a bready malt base. The mouthfeel is medium bodied with high carbonation. High bitterness and loads of tropical fruit notes in the everlasting finish.

This is a benchmark DIPA. Super juicy and complex. Worth a try.

473 mL can from the LCBO; dated Jan 4 2023 and served barely chilled.

Pours a hazy, turbid golden-yellow hue, producing about an inch of foamy white head that doesn't last terribly long. A respectable swath of lacing snakes its way around the perimeter of the glass, with a frothy collar and patchy cap remaining in place. Fruity, mildly juicy aroma with just a hint of booze - I'm getting grapefruit, passion fruit, orange juice and a touch of lychee, with hints of piney, earthy hops.

This is a superb NEIPA - softly sweet background flavours of oats and bready wheat mingling together with a veritable fruit cup of hop flavours. Peach & orange slices in syrup, grapefruit, passion fruit and honeydew melon, with a touch of lychee by mid-sip; berries and stone fruit on the back end, with hints of pine sap and earthy hops preceding a mildly fruity aftertaste. Very light hop burn, nothing to kvetch about. Full in body, with low-ish carbonation that gently agitates this brew's otherwise smooth, soft, juicy mouthfeel. Excellent drinkability given its strength.

Final Grade: 4.19, an A-. Discovering a top-notch midwestern NEDIPA from an American brewery that's completely new to me: is there a better way to celebrate my 3111th review on BA than with Destihl's Haze of the Dead? I doubt it! Moments like these remind me why I still chug along with these reviews on a near-daily basis. I'm not going to claim that this is the most amazing hazy IPA I've ever had: its honestly not THAT 'juicy', nor does it really do anything genuinely novel/surprising. That being said, the flavours are great, the alcohol is very well-integrated, and it's arguably a step ahead of many of the Ontario-brewed alternatives. I urge all Ontario BAs to try this while it's still semi-fresh, and I'll be buying a few more cans, too.

Body looks like thick unfiltered peach juice, capped by a fluffy, airy white head, with good retention of a few minutes.
Aromas of pineapple, kiwi, mango and pine, and a sense of hop bitterness. Fresh, not super juicy.
Fleshy feel of stone fruit, and some of the taste too - peach, apricot, mango; again the fruitiness is muted, not juicy sweet; moderate bitterness, of spruce, and accompanied by a little musty something, which is unexpected and interesting; full body, medium carbonation.

Incredibly easy-drinking, the flavour is complex and intriguing, with more funkiness than I'd expect, and that's welcome. Everything is in near perfect balance.