Formative Years
Annex Ale Project

650ml bottle - muchas gracias to Andrew from the brewery for tossing in this freebie when replacing my infected Past Curfew. This is Annex Ale Project's 100th Batch Anniversary Brew, double dry hopped, and conditioned on orange zest.

This beer pours a slightly hazy, medium copper amber colour, with three zaftig fingers of puffy, rocky, and mildly creamy ecru head, which leaves some decent thickly-rendered streaky lace around the glass as it slowly sinks out of sight.

It smells of bready and doughy caramel malt, a lesser biscuity toffee sweetness, shredded orange peel, a bit of stoney flintiness, and some herbal, weedy, and resinous piney green hop bitters. The taste is gritty and grainy caramel malt, rich toffee squares, wet chalk, muddled domestic citrus rind, a hint of metallic alcohol warming, and more leafy, herbal, and piney verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is adequate in its palate-satisfying frothiness, the body a solid middleweight, and sort of smooth, as that massive hop acridity makes a minor dent in the proceedings here. It finishes off-dry, the malt, frooty esters, and forest floor detritus notes holding down the lingering court.

Overall - this comes across as a very well-made version of the style, kind of a mix between an NEDIPA, and PACNWDIPA (aaah...acronyms - or is it initialism?). Anyways, quite full and flavourful, with a generally aptly-integrated 18-proof booze quotient. Get some before it's gone!