Vert Planet
Double Nickel Brewing Company

Amazing aroma as soon as I opened the can. Cloudy hazy golden color topped by a thin layer of lace. I’ll have another please.

Hazy with a big white head from can. Muted mosaic?(says Denali) Nose from this brew. Light fruity flavor with some bitterness. Not offensive yet nothing exciting. Decent carbonation is a plus.

 

Double Nickel Brewing Company "Vert Planet"
16 fl oz. can, coded "09/20/18 09:44:53"
$4.49 @ Total Wine & More, Cherry Hill, NJ

Notes via stream of consciousness: Nice label as usual. "Double dry hopped with Denali and Falconers Flight". It's poured a murky, light tan and brass colored body beneath a two-finger thick head of white that seems to be holding quite well. The aroma expresses citrus, pineapple, peach or apricot, apple, and pine. It's not the brightest aroma I've encountered in a double dry hopped beer but it's OK. On to the flavor, wow, now that's fruity hoppy! I'm getting more apple, tangerine, peach, mild grapefruit, some soft earthiness, and soft pine. That's really nice. It's really fruity, but not a juice bomb, at least not an orange juice bomb, and the usually raspy components of earthiness and pine are more towards the back and actually support the other hops rather than taking some of the focus away from them. Wow, really nice. The malt is very basic as it should be if you want to display the hops, and I'm guessing there are some oats in there but I can't be sure. What I am sure of is that there's either none, or very very little caramel malt. It's lightly sweetish, just enough to enhance the fruitiness of the hops, and balanced by a median bitterness that shows up in the finish along with the piney and earthy notes and corrals it into a dry finish. Double Nickel is getting really good at these NE IPAs, and I'd say they're stretching the style a bit by using different hop blends. How strong is this, 6.3%? Yeah, that's not that much stronger than a pale ale, and given the bitterness I might be inclined to call it a pale ale, so maybe it's not a NE IPA... ? I don't really care, I'm loving the hop component in this one. Moving on, the head has dropped but there's a very thin island of foam in the center of my glass surrounded by a nice collar, and some beautiful 'clouds' of lacing floating overhead. Forgiving the cloudiness because I'm sure that's intended, this is a 4.25 in appearance. The mouthfeel is quite smooth with a delicate zest on the tongue from a very fine, seemingly natural carbonation and medium-light body. That just adds to its "drinkability". And on that note, I think I could easily drink three or four of these in a row and never get bored with its flavor. So, what do we have for an overall assessment? It's very well made, there are certainly no flaws, and it's superbly balanced and rounded. The malt and hop components, and perhaps the yeasty fruitiness as well, work really well together. It would be nice if the head retention and lacing were even better but that would be a trade-off in mouthfeel as it would require more carbonation that would leave it less smooth. And, of course, a fuller aroma would be nice, but then additional dry hopping might bring in some more harsh notes whereas it's really perfect as it is. I don't know for sure, but at this point I think this might be the best NE IPA I've ever tasted. Excellent! Well worth seeking out!
Review# 6,300