Candlepin (Mosaic)
Castle Island Brewing Co.

 

Regular Candlepin is an excellent hoppy session beer, focusing on Columbus and Citra hops to bring forth strong flavors of pine and tropical fruit backed up by a crisp and simple, efficient malt backbone. I've enjoyed it many times with great company, so happening upon Mosaic dry-hopped Candlepin during my first visit to the brewery this past weekend was a nice circumstance, indeed!

Pour is, obviously, exactly like original Candlepin. A slightly-hazy golden orange color with lighter yellow-ish highlights, capped off with a thin ring of sparkling, bone-white foam, this beer looks pretty decent in my glass but could easily be enjoyed from the can due to its laidback nature and efficient format. I've enjoyed Candlepin this way many times at concerts and whatnot, although it definitely isn't a bad looker when poured into a pint glass.

Nose features more dank, grassy and "green" notes than the regular variety, for sure. Whereas in regular Candlepin I tend to get a lot of citrus (mostly grapefruit), pine and slight touches of guava and mango, this has some superb earthy and grassy elements worked into it. The Mosaic somewhat dominates, however, leaving behind some of the tropical fruit from the Citra. I feel like they might be a bit competitive here, in other words. However, if you like the idea of those elements gaining the upper hand, this will definitely be for you.

Flavor follows along on pretty much the same path, with a more hoppy, bitter and green character than regular Candlepin. Earthy, piney, catty and citrusy with ruby-red grapefruit, orange and lemon flavors coalescing on the palate. Still a ton of dank and grassy aspects here, too, but I kind of feel like they're taking up space on the tongue and crowding out the simplicity of the original. The feel is oily and a tad thicker than the original, with a pretty similar bitterness. Carbonation is bright and body is on the lower side of medium considering the style at play here.

There are some things about this that don't feel like they jive especially well... that said, this is still really good. I just think I prefer the flavor (not to mention the crispness) of good ol' Candlepin, especially since it's available in six-packs of 16 oz cans for under $13 bucks some places I've been. Regardless of my opinion on this particular variant, however, I have to give props where they're do to CI for doing a great job with the new taproom, and an extra thanks to my buddy Dan for providing me with a can of this one!