Dying on The Forest Floor
Elder Pine Brewing & Blending Co.

Growler into pint glass. Pours a nice hazy orange-ish gold with a brief off-white head. Initial impression is juicy citrus and pine, with more hops bitterness than expected for a double-digit NEIPA. Mouthfeel is clean and refreshing - again, atypical for a NEIPA. Finish fades to pine bitterness. Quite enjoyable even though it waasn't what I was expecting.

 

 

Pours a hazy golden color with a nice head and lacing
Aroma has tropical and citrus hints
The taste follows the nose with a tropical and citrus flavor
A medium bodied well carbonated beer
A good NEIPA

 

 

Pours a completely opaque sunburst orange with two fingers of frothy white foam. Aroma is red berry, pine, dank, and grapefruit. It leans more into evergreen and forest hop notes than tropical fruits, giving it a little bite. The finish is soothed out by tropical fruits, bringing some resolution to the nose. Raw grain at the close after the hops fade. Flavor profile is red berries, thick resin, and faint pine and dank hops. Tropical fruits come in at the half way point, crescendoing towards the finish. While it doesn't finish without bite - there is some hop stickiness and burn at the finish - the finale resolution comes via a 50/50 balance of tropical fruits and sticky, resiny hops. It drinks dense, with each flavor hitting with impact. It's evident this is a higher ABV IPA. Mouth feel is medium-thick with a consistently gritty, soft effervescence. As it warms, the effervescence is smoothered out, revealing a watering consistency, dropping thickness to medium. Overall, a big, bold triple IPA that imparts loads of biting and smooth hops on the nose and tongue. It manages to reach resolution, and does so with a fluid transition from start to stop.

Served in a 15.5oz Speigalau tulip from a 16oz can.

 

 

 

Finger of cream white foam, even surface, stays thick once it just coats the surface, soapy lacing ring. Getting bored describing IPAs which just look like apricot juice but that’s what we have here. Very strong pine presence in the nose, mix of white and pink grapefruit, tacky to resiny herbal quality, almost makes it smell like kindling smoke at times, all this makes the pineapple, nectarine, guava fruit scents a touch muted. Full-bodied, the carbonation puts in a full day’s work to lift it off the palate. Pleasingly dry, allows the tar, earth to mineral qualities to come to the fore. That piney element most obvious through the finish and then after you swallow. Tacky pith character to the white grapefruit. The fruit basically the same as the nose, maybe some melon added to the mix. Given its heft does achieve decent pacing. And while not quite refreshing you don’t feel you have to ready yourself for the next sip. The more I sample from this beer category the more disaffected I am becoming. That said, this is a good beer. (Canned 9/18/20)

 

Very well balanced between juiciness and pine (Simcoe, Citra, Sultana). 10% sneaks up on you.