A Ten Minute Set
Mirage Beer Company

2022-10-20
16oz can served in a big snifter. Can is dated 9/23/22 (In memory of Austin Smith).

Pours a mostly clear honey-gold color with a moderate to small head that settles into a thin, wispy island and a moderately thick ring around the rim. There is a tiny bit of very fine carbonation. Smell is mildly astringent, lots of fresh cut vegetation. Some citrus and melon rind.

Taste is mostly tropical juicy, the astringence comes through slightly as a kind of sharpness. Cut vegetation transforms slightly into a resinous bitterness that works nicely with the tropical juicy sweetness.

Mouthfeel is thin, smooth, with just a hint of resin stickiness. Overall, it's not a knockout like Mirage fresh hops I've had in the past, but it's good.

 

Poured into a Seattle Beer Week pint glass. Pours a light to medium golden amber with a two finger white head with good retention and solid lacing. Aroma of lightly caramel malt, citrus and lightly dank hops, orange, grapefruit, light mixed tropical fruit and faint fruit esters. Flavor is pale malt, citrus hops, grapefruit, lemon and some dried floral grassiness. Medium bodied with light to moderate creaminess. A solid single hop IPA that leans in character to a strong pale ale. Solid bitterness and classic Cascade grapefruit citrus, but illustrates why Cascade is used with other hops in the West Coast style, it's a bit one note. On the other hand, it is nice to taste this often used hop as a single hop with solid bitterness. Also good to have a more traditional IPA from Mirage, one of the first breweries that introduced me to hazies, which turned out not to be a style I liked that much; I got this to give them a shot at another style. They are popular for their hazies and this is a worthy fresh hop as well.