DDH Tell Tale EVO v3
Mast Landing Brewing Company

 

Very excited to have the third iteration of DDH Tell Tale EVO in my glass. The regular, year-round version of this beer is absolutely one of the best APAs I've had in years, so when I heard they were going to do experimentation with it in parallel to the standard DDHTTPA, I was very excited. Though this is the first EVO version I've seen in stores in my neck of the woods, I don't feel totally lost jumping in: this was double dry-hopped with Amarillo and utilizes a different yeast strain than the base beer, so it's likely to just be a hop, skip, and a jump away from said brew.

The pour is a deep orange-amber color with a very hazy, nearly-opaque body and a huge, voluminous crown of creamy white foam. There's no such thing as separation between legs and head here... it's just one constant gradient with superior stability. Awesome looking! Great lace when it eventually appears; distinct sheets of sticky residue clinging to my glass.

Nose is more floral and herbal than I recall DDHTT being, for sure. I get a slight bit of spice, spruce, candied grapefruit, and some light esters from the English ale yeast as well. I guess they've used this yeast before in a few other limited release beers, but I can't comment on those because I haven't had them. Suffice it to say, the yeast definitely feels different to my senses, and I can tell it's not a clean American strain right off the bat. It just seems chalky, fruity and a bit fuller with less leafy "greenness" than DDHTT typically has. That said, it also trades off some of the tropical juiciness, instead settling into shades of tangerine and orange. I have a minor personal dislike for generic citrusy notes in modern hazy pale ales, to be honest (just seems really passé at this point, I dunno), but this works well because of the other small elements poking out.

The flavor is very raw in its hoppiness, but the smooth feel and excellent drinkability keep everything together very well. I taste grass clippings, pine resin, grapefruit, candied orange, light mango and tangerine peel/pulp, while the finish hints at floral and herbal notes like the ones I picked up upon first brush with the nose. I feel like the ester notes here muddy things up a little bit, but the beer becomes more... "impressionistic"(?) as a result. I think that's the big difference between this EVO version and the original beer. It is just a little more abstract, but still recognizable as a version of one of their mainstay offerings.