Sea Wall
Fieldwork Brewing Co.

Had this from my first flight at Fieldwork in April 2016. For whatever reason, some of those were reviewed quickly, and a few are being reviewed today. Curious little ipa meets gose here, earlier there was a berliner meets ipa.

Its a rough appearance, cloudy, hazy, milky, whatever you call it, its really do b like that. Yellow. Thin head 1/5", white. The aroma was nice, Amarillo hops providing familiar dry hop notes, grapefruit, hay, orange, grass all accentuated by the ubiquitous Citra.

Taste was a minimal salt influence, similar to their straight up goses. Pushed what seemed like an old school non proprietary C hop grapefruit edge alongside the sexier sweeter citrus notes. That could be the salt just balancing the citrus like sweetness from the Citra though.

 

an american ipa with sea salt. i have to say, i know salt is ending up in a ton of recipes right now, but this is the first i have seen or heard of it in an ipa type. they were smart i think to keep it pretty minimal, it seems to influence the feel more than the flavor, but also plays a nice supporting role in accenting some of the citrusy notes in the hops without really overpowering anything serving to make the beer not refreshing, its still super drinkable and juicy. definitely fuller bodied than some of the others that they had there too, and i think the minerals in the salt has something to do with that. its not as dry as i expected it to be though, some of the hop oils and grain sugars remain, even with the salt. the salt seems to change the hop complexion a little bit, like the very nature of the varetals themselves, its hard to place them because of it. it smells like mosaic, but ends up having a more complex flavor than that, the result of the salt may then be more chemical than taste, which is just fascinating to me. i would have loved to have the opportunity to chat with the brewer(s) about this one, how it came to be, and what their take is on the reaction of the salt with the hops. cool beer, maybe not as different as it could have been, but a real interesting beer from a process standpoint. nicely done!