Even though they're so ubiquitous these days, it's still remarkable how quickly and how far we travelled from "hazy beers will never stick around / are poorly brewed" to the point where pretty much every brewery has at least one hazy pale or IPA in their lineup. You might even argue there's too many of them. But not if you're CBCo...
As we head towards summer 2023/24, they decided to celebrate a couple of gold medal-winning beers to have emerged from their Margaret River NPD program over the past year or two: Hazy and, um, Hazy. Thankfully, while the names are the same, they're differentiated by more than their can design.
I'll start with Hazy (the New England pale ale one in the pink can) because, although it's the boozier of the two, it's also the more laid-back. For starters, it's not actually that hazy – indeed, its appearance would have drawn the ire of some Untappd warriors back in the day – and appears to have donned woollen mittens as it serves its platter of candy berries, ripe citrus, and Starburst lollies. It’s all rather judiciously put together, the fruitiness balanced by a refreshing amount of bitterness, making it highly repeatable and tasty enough to overlook (or look through) the lack of haze.
Which brings us to Hazy, a hazy pale ale brewed with grapefruit, although if you'd told me the juicy citrus character came from blood orange, I'd have believed you. Said juiciness arrives without any accompanying sharpness or tang, welcoming you inside with an extravagant swish of its curtains, before easing up once you're inside. Sure, the flavour is still overtly grapefruity but with the haze-creators in the grain bill and yeast selection enticing you down for a snuggle in a thick shag carpet like the one in the Niagara Falls hotel in Superman II, albeit with less polyester.
James Smith
Published November 22, 2023 2023-11-22 00:00:00
