IPA 5.0 With Grapefruit Juice
Swiftwater Brewing Company

This brew was served from a cask for a special cask release event at the brewery itself. They poured it off into house Weizen glasses. It appeared the color of a lazy autumn sunset, backlit by the fading evening rays out on their patio. A one finger head of creamy, cratering bubbles the color of snow crowned the liquid. This was somewhat surprising for a cask offering, but almost as quickly as we pondered this, it had dissipated in near entirety. Heavy, global cloudiness added density to the brew, but along with this came no sediment. Carbonation appeared very light, remaining softly peripheral. The aroma gave off notes of the most authentic juiciness of raw, bitter, oily, and tart grapefruitiness. These were accompanied by clean and slightly toasty American pale and amber grain, dried white wheatiness, aloe and sunscreen chemical oiliness, dried honey chips, fresh sage, light garbage bag plastics, and heavy hoppiness of citric and floral varietals. The taste followed with that same rawness and authenticity of added grapefruit juiciness that was certainly helped along by the effects of the cask, helping to diminish background white noise. The hops here are floral and fruity, citric and grassy, while the remainder of the space is filled in with cobalt chrome, shaved tangerine and grapefruit skin, robustly drying yeastiness, savory wheat and white grain, oddly distant raw Hefeweizen yeastiness, prickly pear juice, cold glass, roasted corn, molded grass, and dried peach pits. The body was thin and oily, and carbonation was light and appropriate for its medium. Still, each sip rode a thin wave a creaminess to the lips, but by the time this hit the back of the throat, it settled into a citric, squeezing dryness. The abv was appropriate, and the beer was nicely approachable from a drinkability standpoint.

Overall, this was in incredibly approachable beer, making it easy for newcomers to the IPA style, or to the world of the cask, to enjoy. The base IPA was simple and reasonably elegant. We’ve had Swift Water DIPAs before, but never any of their prior “point zero” American IPA series. The hops were really the standout here, coming across as highly fresh, fruity, and zesty, especially for a casked offering. There was certainly synergism as well, between the hops and the added grapefruit juice. While we’ve had Waimea hops before, to our knowledge, the Southern Cross varietal is something new for us (at least it has never been obviously advertised as having been in one of our beers). The citric components of each were clear, as advertised, but the boastful melon notes may have otherwise been hard to pick out had the idea not been dropped in our laps. We’ll be sure to try and make it out to more of Swift Water’s special release events…especially now that they have a sign!!