Vanity World
Definitive Brewing Company

A dry hopped DIPA, made in collaboration with Widowmaker.

Appearance is among the most satisfying. Nearly opaque, very hazy, the right yellow-orange cloudy.

Smell is more grapefruit and melon than follows in the taste.

The taste is heavy on pine, and a little surprisingly light on grapefruit and melon, a bit different than expected from the smell. Some moderate bitter notes, especially on the back end, but not so much as to call into question the dry hopped nature.

Mouth feel is appropriate. Not quite as full bodied juicy as my own personal gold standard of Widowmaker Blue Comet, it’s one notch lighter than that one, but still very satisfying. Doesn’t come across as having the alcohol content of a DIPA.

Overall, seems like a better match with warmer summer weather, or if you want a touch of bitterness balancing out the dry hopped pine flavors. Not the absolute best hazy IPA, but definitely in the top 10.

 

Pours very cloudy gold color with a robust 2 finger sudsy head. Aroma is semisweet tangerine - very pleasant. The flavor is a mellow, fantastic lightly sweet tangerine and orange. Just really smooth and pleasant. The feel is very soft with a light bitterness in the finish mostly. I really like this one. Great hop wrangling here. No alcohol burn at all. I would get this again in a second!

 

Vanity World is a DDH DIPA brewed in collaboration with Widowmaker Brewing, and it features Citra, Citra Incognito, El Dorado, and Galaxy hops. That is quite a cool and stacked hop varietal list, so I'm intrigued to see how they get it all working together. My past experiences with Definitive have been good, though some of their DDH DIPAs have been a bit questionable here and there. Usually, however, I come from a place of genuine appreciation and love when critiquing them for these types of beers. Let's hope this is either amazing (and thus not deserving of much in the way of discussion regarding potential improvements) or, at the very least, something that has some specific faults to address if these two brewers were to team up for a second batch in the future!

The pour here is freaking gorgeous. It's a very nice, saturated golden-orange beer topped off with a generous collar of head that quickly measures taller than three fingers even with a rather conservative pour. As it slowly sinks to a half-finger, it leaves behind an excellent trail of lace with extremely solid legs that just seals the deal... one of the best looking IPAs I have seen lately, for sure!

Smell is reminiscent of melon, ripe mango, and apricot jam all combining with hints of white grapefruit-like tanginess. It's quite a nice, refreshing, and evocative nose that brings a lot of disparate stuff to the table in an effective way. I don't know that I have yet been convinced of "Incognito" hops, since they're basically an isolated liquid hop concentrate with zero vegetative matter, but this does well enough with the Citra version that I am decently satisfied... I mean, it also features normal Citra hops, so it seems like even Definitive/WM weren't fully trusting that this Haas-crafted product would deliver what they wanted, but I could be reading into it too much. As this warms, I'm getting some light resinous dankness along with prominent aspects of fresh-cut grass, both of which do seem to particularly invade into the fruity (and very solidly-built) foundational territory this originally built up, so I'm kinda getting leery.

Flavors of blood orange sherbet, pine resin, and pomelo combine with some light stone fruit roundness and a hint of tangy grapefruit rind. Somewhat reminding me of a more old-school West Coast IPA now, as I'm halfway through the glass. Just has that brash bitterness/resin character that comes across with a bolder and more intense profile than some of the softer hazy DDH IPAs I've had of late. Getting bolder and even grassier as it warms. Galaxy is doing good work here providing some nice fruity/dank counterpoint to the citrus bitterness.

I don't mean to imply that maybe Incognito hops are even more vegetal than normal hop additions, but... it's weird that (oh here we go) this feels "greener" even though it utilizes that technology. Reminds me of how "Cryo Hops," another technological advancement in silly hop tech that claims to reduce hop loss, tend to make beers that utilize them feel somehow "greener." Feel here is rather heavy but still pretty nice, regardless; pillowy and very soft but still leading with enough bite to balance. Lower than average carbonation, but it doesn't negatively affect the way the beer drinks. I enjoy this one despite some of the mentioned misgivings. Galaxy pulls its weight in a big way. Kind of an unsung hero here, honestly. I think a lot of the best qualities this one is giving off have to do with Galaxy, considering I just had a Citra/El Dorado beer in this same style that was not nearly this good (though it was older). I would drink this again, but I also would love to see how it came across without the Incognito addition cuz... man, hop gimmicks are just annoying me at this point. Pouring hop extract into a tank seems... dumb, and a lot of the customer testimonials have me cringing and rolling my eyes at the same time as I imagine all of the money changing hands but... forgive my cynicism, and grab this if you see it and love Definitive's hoppy beers. It's totally worth your time, and Widowmaker has been doing some pretty good shit lately, too.