MoonWerks
Moonraker Brewing Co.

On draft at Aptos Street BBQ, Aptos, Ca

On tap at Moonraker...has a good nose...tropical hops with some floral/pine hints in it...depth was decent with an overly bitter finish for me. Didn't fit my palate.

Canned on 11/23/18
L: pours hazy orange in color. Very juice-like. Little head formation and glass lacing.
S: stonefruit heavy with some acidic citrus on the nose.
T: apricot and mango forward. Notes of lemon and grapefruit on the finish with lingering grass flavor. Very subtle booze presence.
F: medium in body and weight. Carbonation moderate to high.
O: finally glad to have tried. It’s excellent. Smooth and easy to drink- wouldn’t have expected less from two superb breweries. I am very grateful to have tried. Cheers!

Canned 11/23/18

Appearance - Pours hazy and yellow-orange in color with an off-white, half finger's width head that displays fair retention before dying down to a thin, broken layer of suds with a thin ring around the outer edge. Fair lacing with broken lines and small spotting.

Smell - Mango, pineapple and lesser citrus aroma. Fair bready sweetness sitting beneath that fruity aroma.

Taste - Follows the nose. Prominent mango, orange and pineapple flavors upfront and throughout. Moderate alcohol astringency emerges mid-taste. Some mild bready malt sweetness. Fruitiness fades fast after the finish, leaving a mildly boozy aftertaste.

Mouthfeel - Medium in body with fair carbonation. Slick, easy drinker before a dry, warming finish.

Overall - That initial burst of flavor is fantastic, but then it has that odd fitting booziness that kind of takes over the 2nd half of the flavor experience. At 8.5% it's not completely unexpected, but I've also had beers around this ABV that had zero trace of boozy heat.

 

 

This beer pours with a murky bright yellow to light orange body. A semi-aggressive pour down the middle yields one and a half fingers of uniform frothy white head. The head retention is about average for the style, as is the amount of lacing on the glass. Smell has hints of oranges, grapefruits, and papaya, along with some yeast notes. Overall, the scent is quite pleasant, though perhaps less potent than I expected. Smell is on the sweeter side for NEIPAs. This is undoubtedly due to Simcoe hops. There are bitter citrusy Galaxy-typical notes here as well, along with something else that I only ever get in Moonraker beers. I really like the taste of this, and if you have enjoyed Electric Lettuce or Dojo, you should too. Feel is a spot-on double NEIPA; nothing else to say here. Alcohol is hidden extremely well.

Great beer. Only negative is that it's a collaboration, probably never see it again.