Sharks with Friggin Hazers!
Brieux Carré Brewing Company

"Sharks With Friggin Hazers!"

7.2% ABV. "Hazy India Pale Ale."

Initial gut reaction to a 16 fl oz can served in a shaker pint:

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07/10/20 can:

Brewed with Motueka & Mosaic hops per the brewery's Facebook page. Released 06/30/20 so this can has to be 11 days old at most. (It'd be nice if Brieux Carré cared enough to date their cans). I got a 4 pack for $14.99 USD plus tax, but apparently at the brewery's release they sold it for $18 USD...support your local beer store instead of buying direct, I guess.

APPEARANCE: Coating thick white head dies within 2 minutes. Body is a hazy yellow-orange lacking vibrance, filtration, or life. Looks like another humdrum turbid IPA that's unfiltered out of hype and/or laziness, but to be fair a lot of these Johnny-come-lately hazy IPAs look pretty mediocre even if they end up tasting terrific.

AROMA: Mild hop resin. Floral hop aromatics. Pale malt. Sticky hop matter. Pulp. Vague fruit juice (think Odwalla - just an indistinct puree of tropically leaning fruits). Wheat, I think as well.

Has sort of a "fruit juice left out too long" vibe to it. Doesn't showcase Mosaic well judging by the aroma...I find no subtle blueberry.

Aroma suggests a turbid IPA with minimal bitterness, low hop pungency, and a generally uninspired hop profile.

TASTE & TEXTURE: Pulpy thick and coating, with some chewy wheat and/or flaked wheat malt in there not adding much in terms of flavour but filling out the otherwise pale malt/2-row driven body with unnecessary weight. Hop profile isn't bad but isn't good...I get some floral hop aromatics, vague poorly defined indistinct tropical fruits, fruit pulp, and some stickiness (but no concomitant hop oils or resins).

I mean, it's fine. Has the hop pungency of a pale ale, not an IPA, and doesn't showcase Mosaic well at all. I'd definitely say Motueka is the more dominant hop varietal in this, but I'd never guess either Motueka or Mosaic were used if I tried it blind...not because its flavour suggests other hop varietals instead, but because it's just not that committed to its hop varietals and doesn't bring out the best in them.

OVERALL: Either the wheat/turbid approach to brewing is muting the hops or the hops they sourced weren't great...maybe older and/or all American grown instead of the more obvious combination of American Mosaic and Kiwi Motueka. In any case, it's a shrug of an attempt at an IPA. It stings a bit they release it in the cash-grab 4x16 fl oz format instead of the more consumer friendly 6x12 fl oz format,. but I guess this beer is more about margin and marketing than it is about quality. I can't blame Brieux Carré...tthe haze craze is all anyone seems to care about these days and if you can charge hype-driven consumers more for less ounces then as a business you kind of have to (even if breweries like, say, Eddyline doesn't).

It's drinkable but it won't dazzle discerning drinkers familiar with either Parish Brewing's expressions of the style or any of the myriad superior IPAs from outside Louisiana and the U.S.A. I suspect the majority of reviewers giving this 4+ ratings live in New Orleans and haven't tried much from outside the state. Yet Bell's Two Hearted is available here, as are Southern Prohibition's beers and plenty more that easily best this - even without factoring in the bit where they're less expensive.

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