ESM 2.0
Blind Enthusiasm Brewing Company

500ml glass at the brewpub. Made with a new hop strain that apparently is tres tropical in its fruitiness. And not 'v.1.2', you Untappd mouthbreathers.

This beer appears a murky, dark apricot amber colour, with two skinny jeans fingers of puffy, finely foamy, and creamy eggshell white head, which leaves some disintegrating limestone cliff lace around the glass as things quickly progress.

It smells of bready and doughy caramel malt, a mild hard water flintiness, some earthy and estery yeast, muddled tropical fruit notes, and tame leafy, weedy, and floral green hop bitters. The taste is gritty and grainy pale malt, a lesser caramel sweetness, a hint of damp banana chips, some still mixed and matched exotic fruitiness, ethereal musty yeast, and more earthy, musty, and grassy verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is quite understated in its wan-seeming frothiness, the body a decent medium weight, and generally smooth, with a wee airy creaminess arising as things warm up a tad around here. It finishes off-dry, the mixed malt and muted fruit essences the order of the lingering day.

Overall, this surely comes across as another pleasantly quaffable example of an NEPA (note the lack of I, as in India), the focus on tropical fruit and forest floor detritus leading the cause. Not to mention the juicy look, which seals the deal for me for this offering, since the establishment in question seems rather reticent to even speak of or acknowledge established beer styles. Bully for them, I suppose.