Zero One
Halfway Crooks Beer

 

No canning date (released on 11/29/2022); consumed on 2/22/2023

Pours a slightly foggy, lemon-gold body capped with multiple fingers of fluffy, soapy, eggshell-white foam; good head retention leaves a chunky layer of cap, large, frothy collar, and ample spread of spotty, sudsy lacing painting the walls of the glass.

Aromas of clean yeast accented with lemon verbena and floral straw open to white bread dough and a subtle minerality as a pronounced hopping proceeds into a rounded, grassy bittering lingering through the back end of the bouquet.

Taste offers fluffy yeast with a mineralic easing as freshly-cut grass finds a dominant peak over the mid-palate, leaving white toast and lemon edges against a subtle white pepper/straw undertone toward the finish.

Mouthfeel brings a light body and a fluffy, full carbonation, dispersing to creaminess resounding before fading to flaky dryness past the mid-palate as bitterness lingers through a drier finish.

A bitter hopping prominence proves to amply accentuate the already taut, bready foundation, a welcome deviation executed quaintly and with precision.

Appearance: Pours a nearly clear, light yellow-hued body with a frothy, white head. Moderate lacing.

Smell: A little burst smelling of the inside of a mylar hop bag and housing some very subtle fruity hints, it's predominately a spiceful, lightly pithy, grassy-grainy nose.

Taste: Firmly grainy breadiness with a bitterish, grassy herbaceousness and a peppery spiciness with very little sweetness to spare at any point. Quick, cursory flashes of citrus, blueberry skins. Leans rather dry and fairly bitter with a long, lingering aftertaste.

Mouthfeel: Medium-light body. Medium carbonation.

Overall: Titivating the punchy pils, it kinda-sorta brings back Tuppers' Hop Pocket Pils memories.

A chill haze clears out to a lightly burnt gold with a tall, very foamy white meringue head towering over the glass and settling to a floating foam center that leaves spongy layers of lace.

This solid pilsner has a refreshingly cleansing hop bite that's quite herbal, allium-esque and grassy all at once. It's sharp while being inoffensive and smooth.

The slick medium body has an airy froth that comes to a just dry finish. The one flaw I'm finding is that some hop resin seems to hang around a little longer after the swallow than I'd expect.