Blinded By The Colors
Blaze Brewing Company

 

 

Not crazy impressed with this one after reading the few available reviews I had higher hopes. In this day and age I'd barely consider this a NEIPA, kind of a hybrid toward West coast. Plenty of strong flavors and hop bitter to be found.

 

 

Poured into a 13 oz Teku glass canned on 12/09/21. Pours a very attractive orange yellow with a finger plus sticky white head, that leaves gobs of thick lace with excellent retention. 4.5

Aroma papaya, tangerine, white grapes, blueberry, apricot, and grapefruit rind. 4.5

Taste follows papaya, tangerine, white grapes, blueberry, apricot, and a little grapefruit bitterness. 4.5

Mouthfeel is above average, maybe a little sticky, soft gentle carbonation, and at 8% ABV really easy going down, but loaded with flavor. 4.5

Overall my first beer from them and really impressed. Will be looking for more from them. 4.5

 

 

Can from Merchants May 2021

No sign of Manfred Mann here but when I saw this recently at the Bottle King in Livingston, I had to give it a go as I never heard of it nor have heard of Blaze Brewing before. i expected this to be a typical New England IPA since it was from the Pine Tree State and thankfully, this did not disappoint as it was balanced, flavorful, and oh-so-flavorful and easy to drink!

Of course, this had a golden hue to with as there were a few bits of dark red sediment floating in it, although that wasn't a deterrent. Lots of fluffy head topped this off as it settled slowly and evenly as it lingered for the duration of my time with this. Gorgeous rings of lacing emerged as I worked my way through this as they were easily apparent along the bottom two-thirds of my pint glass. Lots of tangy citrus, dewy and dank hops, and deep tropical notes could be detected in the nose as the taste was full of tangerine, grapefruit, pineapple and apricot with a ton of melon tying everything in together. Slick, dank, and complemented by a nicely chewy body, the stickiness from the fruit ended up on my lips and my palate once the final swig of this went down as the carbonation was lively enough to keep this from feeling weighed down.

The amount of booze in this was spot-on for everything else that was present as this was a nice, textbook take on the style. Canned on 1/28, this held up well over the last 2 1/2 months as it was aged and greened quite nicely with very little settling to the bottom of the liquid. Glad to give this a go as I'll be on the lookout for these guys the next time I'm out shopping for single cans!