October Sun
Mast Landing Brewing Company

From a 16 fl. oz. can dated 09/24/21. Sampled Oct 17, 2021. This beer is no longer retired.

The appearance is about what you would expect in a hazy NEIPA with its hazy, opaque yellow-orange tone underneath a foamy white head.

The aroma sparkles brightly with citrus and tropical fruits such as orange and pineapple. A lower profile breadiness.

Soft, medium mouthfeel.

Sweet and bready taste to start but then the juiciness cuts right in and usurps the initial flavor. Citrus juiciness right up to the moderate bitter end.

 

Picked up a four pack of cans at Bradfords Liquors in Plymouth, Massachusetts for about eighteen dollars. My eighteenth brew reviewed from these guys. Canned on date of 9/4/25. Very good.

 

 

 

That head lasted a long while, converting from a dense creamy texture to pancake batter, while coating the glass with thick lace.

The aroma opens catty with strong pine straw and an orange background. Grapefruit and apricot follow, while warmth reveals light bubble gum.

The flavor is all pine and orange at first, with grapefruit becoming strong late in each sip, yet holding throughout the finish. Unripened mango and apricot show up with warmth. The finish is short and mild, dominated by that grapefruit. This one makes no impression with bitterness or sweetness, although both are present with thought.

The texture is smooth and creamy, almost as if it has oats in the malt bill. The body has a medium feel. Alcohol is a bit short of expectation, mild with no heat. The carbonation is prickly and the finish is dry. The beer has a light dustiness.

As a NEIPA, this lacks the brightness and fruitiness I expect. However, as a hazy IPA, WOW, this really hits the right notes. I moved indoors, with a window to enjoy the sunny and colorful afternoon, on this chilly and windy October Saturday. This beer is just fine.

Gifted can from an employee prior to release but never got around to cracking it until after said release. Excellent for a modern ne ipa, very tropical. Mango and melon on the nose. Very little lupulin burn on the taste, nice mouthfeel, not too creamy

October Sun

Mast Landing Brewing Co.

IPA New England / Hazy

Incredibly fresh and smooth vibe. Bright citrus, wet earth, grainy golden malt, easy to vibe with and high complexity. A wild fruity current of tropical and stone fruit juice rides on and mutates until the finish.

Purchased at Allen Brothers Farm >

4.40

 

 

 

 

Really great beer. Huge headache after chugging 2.

I'm always, always down to try a new Mast Landing IPA, and one featuring Citra, Simcoe, and Idaho 7 hops sounds like a great pairing with this crisp autumnal evening (even though it's called October Sun, not October Moon). This was packaged about a week and a half ago, making it one of the freshest ML beers I've had to date. I have to say, these guys have rocketed to the top of my favorite NE breweries list over the past year, to the point where I now own more merch from them than any other single brewery. Gotta represent the best!

Pours a creamy medium-amber/orange color with a frothy head of eggshell-white foam building up to about two fingers on first pour. After five or so minutes, it slowly settles to a finger-high ring adorned with a crown of lace that's sticky and consistent. Great legs here, too. It's not advertised as a New England IPA, but I think it's probably just assumed that IPAs from ML are "New England"/hazy/creamy-looking at this point, so they probably just figured it would seem redundant to say so on the label. Moving on...

The nose here is huge pine and grapefruit with undercurrents of mango, papaya, pomelo, and fresh-cut grass. A light touch of stone fruit (apricot, mainly, I think) and maybe even a smattering of melon from the Idaho 7 can be detected after it starts to acclimate to the glassware. Very green and coniferous, for sure, though the additional fruity elements can't be ignored. I find Citra/Simcoe/I7 to be a fun combination, though this seems to lean a bit more into the Simcoe side of aggressive hoppiness than some other beers I've had featuring this old-school hop recently.

On the palate, OS is a creamy and juicy affair with a superb balance of mango, grapefruit, pomelo, and passion fruit-like flavors from this awesome hop combo. I don't get as much of the melon undertone from the nose, and the delicate stone fruit element is kinda lost as well (Simcoe doing hard work here, as I said), but this just feels like a hop-fruit-smoothie in beer form. Super smooth and velvety feel with a perfect blend of yeast driven esters and hop-forward complexity. Perfectly-dialed-in carbonation and a great follow-through with all of the complex flavors; no harshness or indefinite/odd finish here... these guys are on their freakin' A-game in 2020, and I'm happy to see them become frontrunners of an amazing NEIPA movement. This is fantastic. Probably one of the best hoppy beers I've had in the last few months!

 

A- Hazy deep golden yellow brew from the can into a tulip glass. A thick and creamy head forms to an inch high with great retention. Lots of webbed lacing sticking around the glass.

S- Juicy hops on the softer side of the spectrum like sweet stone and tropical fruits with just a bit of floral and citrus accents. Fairly bright overall. Mango, apricot, slight peach, bubble gum, dank herbs and a bit of tangerine and grapefruit.

T- Hop profile follows up on the nose and pleasantly there isn't any of the burning or powdery acrid hoppiness in many recent IPAs. Stone fruits and tropical fruits open up with mango, nectarine and apricot notes with dank, floral, citrus fruit and melon notes as well. Medium sweetness and hints of whole grains.

MF- Smooth and very silky, perhaps some wheat or oats in this brew as it comes down very soft on the palate. Carbonation is high and it ends with a clean, moderate bitterness.

Smooth, juicy and fresh hops with a very soft and silky, creamy mouthfeel. Stone and tropical fruits with some citrus, dankness and floral notes as well.