That Lagunitas "tropical" flavor

For the price why complain.... CHEERS

 

That "tropical" flavor you are picking up is most likely from the hops.

Also, Your post triggered an old memory. You may find the answer you are looking for in this thread:

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/lagunitas-all-taste-the-same.50538/

 

wow. OP sounds like my twin separated at birth. i don't dislike the related profile that seems to span Lagunitas products but it's not my favorite & particularly i'm one that doesn't like the same thing back to back. so i would rarely ever drink a second Lagunitas product the same day or even the next. and again like you, Lucky 13 was a favorite although it definitely had their signature on it. the fact that Costco was selling them failry cheaply probably also played some role in my tolerance/bias. all that said, their Highwestified has been the 1st beer i've had that i guess has so much on it besides their house signature that i can't say screams "Lagunitas".

the other thing that's weird is if someone cracks a Lagunitas product in the same room, just based on the aroma, i can usually tell it's a Lagunitas beer. can't identify the exact iteration but almost always can tell the brewery. i too wish they'd branch out past that.

 

The tropical flavor is mostly from the ale yeast fruitiness. Most of their core beers do not use any hops that are generally regarded as being tropical. Their house yeast is an English strain which is much more estery than the Chico strain Sierra Nevada uses. Also less attenuative (leaves a little more sugars post fermentation). As far as malts are concerned, Lagunitas likes to use a portion of wheat and munich malt in a lot of their beers.

 

I know what you mean. I can taste a not-quite-subtle similarity between Sucks, Little Sumpin' Sumpin', Sumpin' Extra, Maximus, and Undercover Shutdown. But I buy Lagunitas brews (drinking one now !) because they are readily available, consistent with their quality and freshness, and offer excellent flavor for the price. I happen to like the 'common thread' that seems to run through their brews, although I certainly appreciate others that don't. After all, we're all entitled to like what we like !

 

I picked up a sixer of Sucks yesterday and really noticed that tropical note that was even more prominent than I remembered. But no complaints here.

 

All Lagunitas hoppy beers taste very similar. I strongly disliked them at first and couldn't understand how they were so well regarded. Then over time I grew to really enjoy them...and now I'm back to not caring for Lagunitas much. Which is unfortunate because I got a case of Sucks last weekend and immediately wished I had only purchased a sixer. It smells amazing but has way too much of that malty sticky-sweetness. IPA, Sumpin Sumpin, Sumpin Extra, Maximus, Hop Stoopid and Sucks all have it. Hopefully my tastes will change again.

 

Send this way!

 

I didn't pick up any tropical flavors in High West coffee stout.

 

Lagunitas tastes like green onion to me most of the time... I'm the odd man out, I know. And all their beers have pretty much the same hop character. Not bad beers and definitely good price, just not a fan of them.

 

Only their hoppy beers would exhibit this quality because of the hops. High amount of roasted malts and bourbon barrel treatment, along with the coffee would take center stage drowning out most of the yeast character. In their strong ales and stouts I tend to get dark fruit/molasses notes due to the yeast's reaction with that type of wort.

 

Much love to Lagunitas. Those guys have their own signature attributes to tantalize the old palate. Can't wait to see them on the shelves here in Okieland.

 

I've noticed this over the years as well...to be honest, i got turned off of some lagunitas offerings because of this but have now come to appreciate it as their signature flavor, much in the same way that i regard SN. Ultimately, it just means that we've had a lot of beers worth drinking from these great breweries and come to recognize their core components.

 

I rotate thru the Sucks, Lil Sumpin quite regularly. I keep a six pack of one of those in my fridge at all times. I honestly don't ever pound them out in one sitting, I usually will have one a nite. At first didn't much care for them but caught both on tap at different times and since then I keep them around. Now if Hop Stoopid was to come out in 6'rs then I would buy the shit out of it. I did get a bad batch of Lil Sumpin when in florida, but I recovered

 

I feel the same way about Great Lakes Brewing. To me all their beers have a cocoa powder/ Malt-o-Meal taste that I don't care for in any of their beers EXCEPT Edmund Fitzgerald which still remains one of my favorite beers as well as Blackout Stout.

 

It's their house yeast.

 

My guess is it is their house hop extract they use in the bittering charge. To me it doesn't taste nor smell like yeast. No English yeast I have used gives off that signature tropical thing. BTW I really like it.

 

Maybe I've been drinking too much east coast IPA, but I get zero tropical flavor in Lagunitas beers. A ton of overly sweet candy type malt, absolutely, but no tropical at all. I used to love Sucks but it doesn't do it for me anymore because of that overt sweetness.