Hopfen Keller
Varietal Beer Company

16oz can, about a month old

Pours about a finger of white head into my pilsner glass. Retention is quite nice, barely anything receding after a few minutes. Initial lacing looks inconsistent. Body is just slightly hazy, golden yellow in color, with a good bit of nucleating bubbles coming up. Looks pretty nice so far.

Nose is quite hoppy. A large amount of lemon, zest, and an extremely earthy, almost dirty musty smell. Doesn’t really smell “off”, and at only a month old, even a hoppy beer should probably hold up. Still, it’s quite weird, maybe I’m not too familiar with Comet. Smells…good? Not sure how to grade this, not crazy about it but it has potential.

Flavor is lemon, intense zest, and a very pronounced bitterness. Faint earthy notes. This is loaded with flavor, but there is a bit too much bitter citrus, the word balance doesn’t seem to be in their vocabulary. Not malty in the slightest. Not bad, but it’s fair to say this isn’t my cup of tea.

One huge different from nose to palate is that the flavors might come through even more due to the extremely thin body that was not expected on the nose. There is nothing to cut the bitterness or zing, no balance. It’s extremely bitter, and acidicly puckering. Carbonation is very high. Not even remotely sweet. While a thinish body is to be expected in this style, if you’re going to hop it to hell you need to compensate.

Drinkability is ok, but it’s hard to drink too fast considering how abrasive it is.

Appearance turned out quite nice. Pretty thick lacing and a little island of foam lasted all the way down.

I can appreciate a bitter beer, but all things considered this is too one dimensional in that regard and in lack of complexity. No off flavors or blemishes, I just don’t think this recipe works.

Cloudy pale gold/yellow. Initial aggressive pour yields half head. This eventually settles out to mostly liquid, with a lovely puffy white head that sticks in drifts along the glass.

I'm going to betray a significant amount of ignorance here. Nose is light/bright and fresh. The hops are definitely very light. Mildly grassy with some floral elements. The ignorance comes in when I get beyond that part. It's got some spice and what I walways think of as lager-like aromas. I always want to describe it as almost stale smelling, but that's really not accurate. But it's the descriptor I always think of.

Flavour starts with that same 'stale' lager-spice character. There's some minerality as you come around that corner, softened with the yeast and hops. Noble-esque elements as well as some pithy citrus. The fresh hop character is subtle, and at this juncture is mostly reserved to just a mildly brightening sensation and a pleasant aftertaste.

Soft body, with bright active carbonation, the bitter hopping lingers and almost gives it an impressions like a soft IPL.

I dig it overall. It still pushes my personal understandings and comfort zone to an extent, but it's really well crafted and enjoyable, and that's not JUST because fresh hops make everything better.