Slush DDH (Rakau)
Outer Range Brewing Co

Canned 3/23/26 but just now in stores(!) it's a nice enuf 2x NE ipa with good mouthfeel; thick haze; medium hoppiness; a subtle citrusy/fruity/hard-to-pin-down flavor & certainly smooth for an 8.9%er that I'm counting for #TIPAThursday. Probably was much better fresher than two months old

 

L - Murky sea-monkey yellow juice. Not much head, decent lacing.
S - Completely up-ending in terms of expected aromas here. Like a Nelson beer on steroids. The Rakau has the grape but amplifies the guava-jackfruit-lychee dimension, and has "almost" a hard clear liquor edge to it. Very intriguing. Has a very meaty melon smell to it. Huh.
T - Again, white grape, lychee, "white meat" (in a good way), and some melon-guava affect to it. This is unlike most of their beers and took me by surprise. Again: beguiled and bedeviled.
F - Solid mouthfeel, great palate attack, no hop burn, balanced, not overly boozy or sweet, just the right amount of tropical bitterness and carbonation. I'll take it.
O - I'm not sure how to rate this beer. Rakau is such a different hop but ORB did this one right. KEEP ON IT!

 

 

 

Taste like pear juice

 

Single Hop Rakau. One of my all time Favorite beers. Drinks great out of a can or on tap. Very tropical and easy drinking DIPA. perfect name as it was dropped right around spring skiing in the high country. Look forward to the next use of Rakau.

 

all rakau hops here, something i had never seen in a single hop context until recently, and now have seen several times this spring. its a great hop, one i expect we will hear a lot more about coming up here soon, its full of southern hemisphere tropical fruitiness but also has at least some capacity for bittering, as evidenced by the finish of this one. one thing these guys do as well as anyone is the texture of these things, this ipa is so creamy, but its not sweet at all from the grain, and it drinks freakishly easy for what it is, i mean, so many outer range beers do this, but i appreciate it anew ever single time. i do get a little sweetness in this one though, more from the hops somehow it seems, pineapples and honeydew and papaya and orange, massively delicious! not just dry hops either, as robust as that side of it is, there is some nice bitterness here at the end, fresh and vegetal and sturdy. rakau seems like the next big thing, some mosaic characteristics to it, some of that herbal goodness something like a sorachi ace has too. this is brilliant beer, but lately it seems like they all have been from these guys! definitely one of my new favorites.

 

Update: My second beer was Brown and gross.