Wandering Into the Fog - Battle of the Hops: Mosaic vs El Dorado
Abomination Brewing Company

2023-07-16
16oz can served in a snulip. Can is dated 05/29/23. @Roguer sent it to me in a generous LIF box during NBS BIF #17.

Pours a hazy (maybe murky) pale yellow-amber with a small, very fine head. Smell is melon / bubble gum and citrus rind bitterness, cut greens.

Taste doubles down on the melon / bubble gum, juicy but not too sweet, bitterness turns more into melon rind or fruit skin. With a little twist of perspective, it's not hard to see it as a lot of tropical juice.

Mouthfeel is medium, little bit of that gritty chalkiness. Overall, very nice beer.

If all NEIPAs were like this one I would probably be more interested in the style.
Sent to me by @Roguer in an LIF associated with NBW BIF #17.
Poured opaque but not murky, a lighter shade of raw amber.
No aroma for me, stupid Covid.
The taste is a very nice balance of pitted fruit like apricot and peach and mango (are mangoes pitted?). Any way-there might be some citrus in there but it’s buried under the other fruit flavors.
Just enough malt backbone to carry the weight of the hops (quadruple dry hopped, what does that mean?) but I think it is the hops that carry the flavor load.
The feel is what surprised me the most- almost crisp, definitely clean, not quite lager level but I’ve had more body on regular IPAs. Makes drinking it way too easy.
Good beer.

 

From first sip, this is an absolute home run of a NE-style IIPA, from a brewery that does the style extremely well.

"Quadruple dry-hopped" is certainly a bit of marketing spin, and perhaps counter-intuitively, this beer is far more expressive on the palate than the nose. Super creamy and soft. Tasting notes are primarily tropical (e.g. mango, papaya, pineapple) along with some citrus. Low dankness, although with these varietals, I would expect that varies based on the freshness of the beer.