God Loves Ugly
Modestman Brewing

 

 

16oz undated can.

Pours cloudy yellow with an inch-plus head of white. Plenty of tattered lacing and persistent retention. Pineapple, peach, pear in the nose. Medium bodied with a soft mouthfeel. Juicy tropicals on the palate with minimal malt or bitterness. Finishes with minimal malt or bitterness.

From a growler filled at the brewery in Keene this afternoon.

Pours into my tulip glass an opaque gold with a creamy and bubbly off white head. Good retention and fluffy lace sticks to the glass.

Scent is mango, pineapple, orange, pine needles. Lime. Some dankness which comes across as weedy and oniony to me. Love that smell.

Taste is spicy up front with pine resin and dankness. The citrus (limes, grapefruit) and tropical fruits (mango, guava, pineapple) come in afterwards. Earthy. There's a very nice bitterness here which I don't often find in NEIPA's.

Mouth is juicy and quenching with a puckering astringent finish.

Very interesting NEIPA. Both the taste and the feel differ from the usual style. More bitter, resiny and astringent; less soft pillowy and tropical fruit sweetness. I haven't had a single modestman brew that failed to impress. This one is another great example.

From a 16oz can, undated but canned sometime this past week, at least according to their insta. Served in a spiegelau IPA glass.

Pours a thoroughly murky yellow-gold with a scant finger of soft, soapy suds. Retention is unremarkable, leaving a fizzy cap and thin sheet of soapy lacing.

The nose is where it’s at! Funky, fruity, dank and yeasty. Aromas of pineapple, apricot, lime, orange, marijuana ice cream and funky sweat. All that.

And the taste pretty much does follow the nose. Bhang water, peach fuzz and earthy bitterness. Tasting orange cream, pineapple and lime. There’s a little sour composty something in the aftertaste that I’m just going to go ahead and ignore because everything else is right on.

Feel is creamy-smooth and medium slick bodied with ample fine, tingly carbonation. Mouthcoating, maybe to the point of almost wanting a cracker to get it off.

Overall, a mighty tasty NEIPA. It’s not without flaws but it’s so tasty and creamy, and otherwise nails the style so precisely, that I can’t bring myself to be dickish enough to dwell on them.

Just phenominal sauce from Modestman. So proud to have them in our state. This stuff is sublime in every metric - looks deliciously opaque, smells juicy as all get-out, flavors are just so well-balanced it's absurd, and as smooth a mouthfeel as can be with a clean, but really tasty, finish. Superb!

 

16 oz can into a tulip glass.

Pours an opaque yellow gold color with a finger of soapy white head. Moderate retention. Leaves a nice ring of lacing around the glass. Looks like an orange sherbet smoothie.

Strong aromas of apricot, mango, pineapple, orange candy and grapefruit, with some lighter notes of honeydew melon and pine. Herbal spice throughout.

The flavor is so well-balanced. Sweeter notes of peaches, melon, tangerines, and orange creamsicle. Lightly tart apricot and some bitter grapefruit rind, with an earthy, bitter piney finish. The cracker malt hides in the back like a little bitch. But he's there. You know he's there.

The feel is medium-full bodied with lower carbonation. Creamy, soft, and exceptionally smooth.

Overall, this is a fantastic NEIPA. It's drinkable, yet full-flavored and is nearly perfectly balanced. This beer reminds me a lot of Other Half, who have (or used to have) done incredible things with the simcoe hop. Very happy this beer is brewed in my home state. I need more.

 

 

Hot off the heels of their new Run Come Save Me NEIPA (which features Idaho 7 and Citra) comes this one with the same ABV featuring Simcoe and Citra. I expect it to be a little less experimental/out-there, but similarly great. Simcoe is one of the best hops of all time, in my opinion, as it has this uncanny ability to just really work in most recipes that heavily feature it, and so I'm hoping it stands out here. No disrespect to Citra, of course, but as I mentioned in my review for RCSM, they've already demonstrated their aptitude with it in multiple other beers. Let's see what's going on here!

Pour is definitely a bit better looking than RCSM, which is amusing because I remember the last time I had two MM NEIPAs back-to-back, I also thought the second one has a superior appearance to the first. Again, it could certainly go back to glassware or something, of course, but this is a bit more vibrant looking with a less "strictly-yellow" color and more depth/saturation to it. Orange sherbet-looking with some straw highlights, a decent quarter-finger head with good if inconsistent lacing. Kind of a give-and-take with this one, honestly. I still think this is one of the areas in which MM could use some improvement.

The smell of this beer is quite awesome, and I will be extremely happy to give Simcoe a lot of the credit for that. The intense pine needle/grapefruit/apricot combination is super redolent of that varietal, and, though I think Citra should be applauded for giving some nice backing mango/guava/tangerine here, the majority of this is just insanely Simcoe. For this one I will go back to my review of DDH Simcoe Bomb from Sloop: "Simcoe is currently undergoing a renaissance in the NEIPA realm, the way I see it, and its unique charms seem to have it worming its way into unusual hop combos." Yeah, no kidding. This is incredibly aromatic and the smell of it is almost intoxicating all by itself. It's honestly hard to overstate how important I think this varietal is to modern IPAs, so let's continue to the flavor profile.

Sugared grapefruit and guava upfront with notes of passion fruit and dank grassiness in the mid-palate and transition to the finish. Superb fresh pine needle elements coming out as it goes down, and an almost menthol-like coolness washing over my palate. Huge citrus and complex tropical flavors as it warms a bit. Very happy with the surprisingly forward bitterness in this one; it's not just a "juice bomb"! There's a bit of that, sure, but I honestly get a ton of complex elements that don't just feel strictly fruity or smooth, though I will say the Simcoe doesn't feel overly aggressive or biting... it's all dialed in quite nicely. Feel is, of course, quite plush, and it highlights the spruce-y stuff happening while also lending space to the tropical fruit elements. Soft, lightly-effervescent carbonation helps this one out a lot. Definitely one of their best IPAs, and I'm craving more now.

Poured into a 16 oz Nordic pint glass canned this week. Pours a hazy yellow with a half finger sticky white head that leaves thin streaks of lace with excellent retention. 4.75

Aroma is tangerine, cantaloupe, papaya, pineapple, and apricot. 4.75

Taste follows tangerine, cantaloupe, pineapple, papaya, and apricot really balanced and low on bitterness. 4.75

Mouthfeel is above medium, soft creamy carbonation, not dry or sticky, and at 7% ABV really easy going down. 5

Overall another killer NEIPA from Modestman Brewing. Serious wow factor for me. 4.75