Raked Over
Wellington Brewery

This is essentially a fairly a common IPA with a bite to it's finish. Doesn't quite work for me. No harmony.

Pours a very substantial and fairly long-lived head, but not a lot of lace. Hazy, slightly orange hued brew. Fruity nose, mostly mango with a dose of grapefruit/orange citrus. A hint of spice from the pepper. Mango and pineapple, some citrus pith to taste and then - bam! - the sharp bite of habanero. I like heat, but it has to be properly married to what you're eating/drinking. Too much of a sharp edged afterthought.

Can - pours hazy gold-amber with a puffy off-white head...aromas of floral-pine-citrus....full bodied and sharp mouth feel...Flavor is like a decent IPA up front with malts in tow behind rich hop....bittering then the finish has the habanaro peppers show up and eclipse the fruits and hops with a peppery burn..pepper aftertaste...a good IPA ruined with an incomparable taste...hot peppers do not compliment iPAs ...just IMHO

 

Pours a bright hazy golden with a scant finger of short lived bubbly off white head.
Aroma has notes of mango, pineapple, tropical fruit but with a bit of vegetal green pepper - the fruity notes take over as warms.
Tastes of mango and pineapple juice - but only shortly until the habanero spice heat takes over - detracted slightly by an earthy vegetal note and a kick of green pepper.
Mouthfeel - hard to say - medium to medium full but honestly the heat and habanero spice rule everything - and sits - this I like.
Without the vegetal note really good, even so not bad.

 

Appearance: Our body is an opaque cloud of yellow that you can't even see any carbonation. It has some very obvious unappetising brown yeast pieces floating about it. The pour produced two fingers of head, but it dissolved almost immediately, although it did make some lace when it came around.

Smell: Mango is by far the dominant note, with pineapple and grapefruit in the background with a slight spicy pepper note. The potency is decent, but warming does help bring the pineapple quite a bit.

Taste: Starts with mango, some bitter grapefruit hops of which the pineapple slowly appears to sweetening things up before earth and pine hops try to speed down the road and take over (and ruin it for me as I'm not a big IPA fan). So..this....wait...BAM! hot spicy peppers T-Bone the hops and take them out like a gas tanker slamming into a timber truck, leaving fiery heat in its vengeful wake.

Mouthfeel: There is no doubt that Habanero is in the beer, as it is spicy and that spice continues to more or less win the war against resin like hops that still try to make a play and cling here when you swallow during the aftertaste. That said, it's mostly drowned out by the heat, so onward brave pepper. Transitioning started out well before the pepper crash, but because that crash saved me from the far worse hop crash, I'm oddly ok with it. Carbonation is a bit low, but it does a decent job of accenting the entire beer.

Drinkability: Medium bodied, that thankfully settles down well because of the low carbonation, which is good because I can see the high hop, high heat causing issues. Refreshing...not really, I mean the high hops add a bit of dryness that isn't welcome but I don't think that's the intent here given the heat. I'd call it crisp if not for that hop cling.

Final Thoughts: A rare IPA I actually like, but only because it basically killed it's obscene bitterness with even more obscene spiciness, which I find I can enjoy a bit more. That said, oddly enough the problems I have with the beer seem to stem from the high hops, which if slightly dialed back, I think could make this beer do even better. I mean, those Hops do lend a playful note and do contribute a bit to the crispness (albeit at the cost of cling). When I would drink this beer, really amounts to any time I wish I could sneak hot sauce into a dish. This stuff would make a great substitute for it's absence, so in that regard, consider this a word of warning. This beer isn't for everyone and isn't for the faint of heart, as it's a chili beer that does not mess around and it is spicy enough to drown out the bitterness of what appears to be a fairly modest IPA. Thumbs up from me.

 

473 ml can served cool into a pint glass. Part of Welly Rebooted Volume 6. Canned on March 27, 2019. Can looks freaking awesome.

Appearance - Beautiful hazy (but not too hazy) golden beer with orange and amber hues, capped with nearly thee fingers of loose white head with good staying power. The occasional little bit of debris in the glass too. Curtains of lacing left behind.

Smell - Tropical with mango, pineapple and orange playing a role, but not super aromatic or intense. There's something spicy lurking in behind, but well hidden. Powdered doughnuts strangely are one of the smells I distinguished after a couple of sips.

Taste - Mango, pineapple initially and the boom, peppers kick in big time. Quite spicy, probably too much for some. Some green pepper in there too.

Mouthfeel - Medium bodied although on the heavier side of medium, carbonation is quite light and finish is well hot due to the peppers.

Overall - I'm a big fan of chile beers and that is what this is. Plenty hot, though not unbearably hot and has enough fruitiness to counterbalance things somewhat. Pretty good and exactly the type of beer I enjoy (partially due to the surprise aspect) in these seasonal mixed packs.

 

473 mL can from the LCBO; one of four brews included in their Mixed Pack Vol. 6. Dated Mar 27 2019, best before Jul 27 2019, and served barely chilled.

I don't think Wellington has tried to market this beer as a NEIPA, but it more or less looks the part, anyway - very hazy to the point of turbidity, with nearly an inch of puffy, foamy white head that settles off within five minutes. A sloppy swath of lace is splattered against the glass as it is reduced to a fat, lumpy collar and thin film upon the surface. Looks good, and the nose is no less appealing, offering up notes of pineapple, apricot, mango and light pepper spiciness to go along with its grainy, wheaty, slightly bready malt backdrop. Suggestions of earthy hop resin, mandarin orange and grapefruit provide an added layer of depth.

I wish more of that pineapple and mango came through, but instead they're muddled in amongst hop flavours of stone fruit, grapefruit and orange, as the pepper flavour comes to overpower everything else. That habanero spiciness really starts to take over towards the tail end of the sip, running roughshod over the earthy, resiny hop bitterness, and lingering well beyond everything else into a spicy aftertaste. Medium-full in body, with low carbonation levels that prickle the palate without much intensity; its texture is smooth and a little soft, with good weight. Not something I could drink one after another, but an enjoyable and interesting tipple nonetheless - particularly as my taste buds adjusted to the heat, and the tropical fruit/hop flavours really began to shine through.

Final Grade: 4.05, an A-. Raked Over IPA is half chile beer, half fruity, hazy IPA. I liked it, but it's got a little more heat than I was expecting - and yes, I am aware that it says "habanero" right on the label. I merely wasn't expecting Wellington to produce something this picante. My tolerance for hot peppers is middling at best, so your mileage may vary considerably: if you can't stand hot stuff then this may very well be a chore to finish, but if you *love* peppers then it might not be intense enough for you. Given its relatively brief 'freshness' window, I'd highly suggest you try it now vs. four months later.