Pop-A-Top
American Solera

2024-06-30
12oz can served in a tulip. Don't see a date on the can. Got it from @russpowell in NBS BIF #18.

Pours murky orange-yellow with a big, crunchy head. Smell is citrus and old hay.

Taste is lots of citrus, creamy orange, honeysuckle sweetness. Still has a faint background of old hay.

Mouthfeel is light, airy, smooth, creamy. Overall, it's good, though maybe just hitting its expiration date.

 

I drink a lot of IPAs and beers masquerading as IPAs. This is a very drinkable beer and I like it. But, to me malty aftertaste is not what I want in an IPA.

 

another one from these guys made out east, cryo hops, maybe citra, a super clean hazy, modern and light and fresh and good, fairly priced too for once, summery for this time of year, but they nailed it, the quality is excellent and the hop flavor is unique. its remarkably sunny looking for a hazy, holds an inch of creamy white head, and smells like sliced oranges, meyer lemon zest, sweet white wine, and good sativa in a rice paper joint, just lit. mandarins and mangoes in the flavor, juicy up front, then kind of fast fading, and with very little from the grain, almost to the extent it makes this sort of seltzer-esque, orange soda maybe, simple in a lot of ways but importantly its clean on the ferment, lighter and more refined than their other hoppy stuff has been. i love all the bubbles and the minimal body, lightly grainy still in taste, and fruit forward on the hops, hash oil, orange tic tacs, pineapple candy too, and just a little oily linger. this is real good beer, i could drink a whole mess of these, it warms up well, is fresh as can be, and seems better than what else they have done in the style. real good, even if its a little odd in the fall. this is high summer quencher ipa!

Typical coloring with typical head color. Nose is citrusy again as expected. Taste is slightly pineapple with a good aftertaste, however the bitterness is not what I had hoped for (but I LOVE BITTER IPAs).

In the efforts to unlock more and more of the aromatic and flavor compounds in hops, American Solera introduces new hop processing technology in a hazy, New England-styled IPA. This stuff is about the pop the top on what's possible in hoppy beer.

Pale gold and carrying a creamy sepia-stained froth over a dense bed of translucent and cloudy ale, Pop-A-Top showcases the Cryo Pop hops with a perfumy array of tropical, citrus, orchard, vinous and stone fruit. Its brightly decorated scent precedes an early taste of caramel, honey, dough and cereal that layers on the early palate like shortcake.

Even with the persistence of grain, cereal and malt stewing about on the middle palate, its sweetness acts to make the fruity hop impressions seem more rounded, plumper and more juicy. Rife with mango, apricot, over-ripened orange and red grapefruit, the fruit cocktail eventually includes pineapple, grape, berry and pawpaw in a cream, dense and fruit forward culmination in taste. A light bitterness is a somber offset to the boldness of fruit and the lingering sweetness and leaves the session lacking balance.

Medium bodied but registering fuller, Pop-A-Top finishes on the malty side of malty-dry with a medium length aftertaste of tea, tobacco, gin spice and fresh spruce resins to accompany the fruit and cereal afterglow.