Cloudy & Cumbersome - Guava (Double Dry Hopped)
Levante Brewing Company

 

16 oz can poured into teku

A- A hazy orange with a two finger off white head.

S- Citrus, grapefruit, guava, tropical fruits, hints of melons, a little dank, hints of wet grass.

T- Citrus, guava, grapefruit, tropical fruits, melons, some lime zest, slightly piney.

M- Smooth, medium body.

O- A tasty NEIPA, fruit works really well in this. This is second fruited Cloudy and Cumbersome I’ve tried, this one isn’t as fruit as the peach version but the guava has a nice touch to this.

this is the best fruited IPA i have ever had.... is it just trial and error?

 

Poured into a pint glass via draft

Color us a murky yellow with a little bit of white foam

Smell is sweet tropical fruit..guava, mango, papaya

Taste follows the nose with a clean and crisp hit of hops on the backend

Carbonation is medium and the mouthfeel is a bit thicker than expected

This drinks like a session ipa with a bit more punch..well done

 

Big thanks to Jeremy for gifting me this one. Cheers!
Pint can dated 10/04/18 "Guava Have It" - Poured into a tulip at 40F

Pours a very hazy peach/salmon color, almost murky, with a loose sudsy two-finger bone white head, that settles down to irregular patching and a thin collar. Big webby lacing.

Nose is muted dry hops with a big blast of guava. Also big notes of tart raspberry, blueberry, clementine, and peach. The more I smell, the more it's just bursting with tropical fruit. REAL tropical fruit - not tropical fruit notes coaxed from hops. Juice. Smells like a heavily dry-hopped fruited sour ale almost. Maybe some Mosaic character going on? Edit: A closer look at the can does indeed reveal that this is hopped with Mosaic and Idaho 7.

Palate is juicy tropical fruit up front, with guava being the star. Notes reminiscent if mango, pineapple, grapefruit, and melon or papaya come through underneath. It's also fairly tart. I said it smells like a DDH Fruited Sour, and it actually kind of tastes like that, too. In terms of IPAs, the hop character is pretty subtle and soft spoken - but there's enough hops here where you couldn't really get away with calling this anything other than an IPA. It's juicy (literally) up front, and then finishes dry, with a shy bitter touch. Zero sweetness. Seltzer dry. Alcohol feels as projected - at 6.4% Edit: I've just realized there's little to no malt backbone at all. That's what makes this so dry and reminiscent of a sour ale.

Mouthfeel is light and crisp. Very light for an IPA. Seltzer-like high carbonation lends to it feeling as light as it does. It's actually very refreshing, and this would be a good thirst quencher on a hot summer day.

Overall, this is probably the best fruited IPA I've ever had. It may be very unconventional and lacking many of the building blocks of a good IPA, but I'm not rating this as an IPA - I'm rating this for the unique, against-the-grain beer that it is. And man, do I love guava. I LOVE guava, so this speaks to me. This beer will appeal to many style preferences in different ways. A hop head will appreciate the hop subtleties. A wild ale lover will appreciate it's yeast character and zing. A lager/pils drinker will appreciate the massive drinkability. It checks many boxes. A NEIPA? Okay, maybe not. An awesome beer? You betcha! A phenomenal EXTRA in a trade box.