Hazey Jones
McCall Brewing Company

12 oz can from Hops and Bottles. Medium amber pour, wispy head. Malty aroma, light fruity notes. Taste is more on the malty side, some citric flavors.

 

12oz can poured into a pint nonic; pours out an unfamiliar dark gold/bordering on amber color with mild haziness and a soft off-white head. The nose opens up with a floral pineyness that leads into an earthy hop profile with some lemony notes; toffee and a bready malt backbone are apparent; present malt sweetness, moderate bitterness from that earthy lemongrass; prickly carbonation. Especially at 8.5% abv, I was expecting something more like a double NEIPA; this drinks like a PNWIPA. Still, its fine, just not totally to style and not what I expected.

of their more modern styled beers i had in here, this was one of the better ones, a hazy double new england type, but they still cant bring themselves to drop all the malt out, and this has an amber hue to it, darker than beers in this style usually appear, and not overly hazy, just lightly frosted from the tap. the aroma is nice on this, a little tame by modern dry hopping standards though, not overly juicy or robust to me, lightly citrusy with orange and lemon notes and a lemongrass sort of freshness to it, but there is more than enough grain in here for this to be balanced in the flavor, earthy and cereal forward underneath the hops, but barely underneath them. i think this could use a bigger late kettle or dry hop addition, it seems almost conservative compared to the best examples of the style, although the flavors they have working here are quite good. it hides it alcohol really well too, this one kind of snuck up on me, had no idea it was this strong when i was enjoying it! i dont mind the extra malt in this, it just needs more hops to maintain the right proportions. cool recipe though, definitely something different here in a style that has become very samey. good carbonation too, and a pleasant citrus aftertaste. they do a blend with the hippie hopped pale ale here at the brewery that seems to be popular as well, but i liked them both better on their own than blended together.