I Picked The Wrong Week To Stop Sniffing IPA
Sand City Brewing Co. - North

 

 

 

 

Pours like orange juice. One finger white head nice lacing. Aroma of grapefruit and orange juice. Taste follows the nose with melon,dank and apples. Extremely smooth and easily crushable.

Traded for this at Other Half and got a good laugh when I saw the name of it. I was never a big movie buff but I love the Airplane! reference here. Of course, the two breweries that had a hand in this are nearly as good as it gets now and so was this beer, which lived up to the label!

The pour was like pure orange juice but without the pulp and with a head that was nearly second to none. Tons of lacing left behind down the back of my Teku glass as I sipped this, covering a majority of it. Lots of orange juice, melon, dank hops, wet grass, and green apple in the nose with all of those coming out in the taste. Beautifully smooth and wonderfully complex, the full range of flavors really emerged once this fully warmed up. A faint creaminess and low carbonation kept this easygoing as a dewy dankness came and left quickly in the aftertaste once this fully went down.

No hint of booze here but there was plenty of citrus slickness and grapefruit-like acridity to give this strength. Really wonderful stuff that went down as easily as could be. Though the bottom of the can didn't have a date, this was not a beer to take lightly; regardless of it's name! One of the best IPA's from this neck of the woods, hands down...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can from the release on 12/23, it pours cloudy yellow color with gold highlights and a solid 1+ finger foamy white head that was full of bubbles, which dissipated very slowly and left outstanding foamy lacing coating the sides along with rings as it went down. Textbook NE style IPA good looks.

Smells of grapefruit, lemon zest, skunk weed, orange peel, tangerine, green apple, light barnyard funk, melon, tropical fruit, piney hops, fresh cut grass, biscuit, toasted grains and earthy weed notes. This nose is just as much weed and vine ripe wet hops as it is citrus fruit, making for a very complex and yet semi-unbalanced nose. Basically it smells super dank.

Tastes of grapefruit, lemon zest, orange peel, tangerine, green apple, melon, citrus hops, passion fruit, skunk weed, fresh cut grass, piney hops, light barnyard funk, biscuit, toasted grains, mild peppery spices and earthy/weed notes. The sweet aspects and bitterness clash a bit while the malt backbone tries to support the citrus dominance which ends off mostly like grapefruit juice. Some candied sugar and fruity candy like Razzles show up towards the end, but just add more flavor and complimentary accents to the citrus.

Mouthfeel is smooth and a little thin, with mild to average carbonation, a medium level of bitterness and enough fresh juicy hops to hide the 8.5% ABV. The aftertastes is on the dry side and pretty much resembles grapefruit juice as it fades.

Overall another fine collaboration, this time with Aslin Beer Co. In my view this beer is a bit too fresh and green so I'll revisit another can in a week or two, at which point I suspect it will smooth out with a little less bitterness and more flavor. Like most Sand City DIPA's, this one should improve after sitting for 1-2 weeks in the can which would boost the taste and overall rating scores. Great beer name and an equally enjoyable brew, looking forward to the next can.

01/28/2018-Had another can a month later and it indeed did smooth out with a lot less bitterness and more flavor. The flavor seemed to get sweeter and more juicy, with added tropical fruit notes. Sand City beers tend to hit that sweet spot a week after canning and this brew was no different. Raised the "Taste" score from 4.25 to 4.5, which drove up the overall "Rating" from 4.39 to 4.49.