Apparently the phrase "winner winner chicken dinner" comes from a time when Vegas casinos featured $1.79 chicken dinners and a minimum bet of $2. Win a hand, buy a cheap meal. Learn something new every day.
But this beer tastes less like a minimum bet and a cheap meal, and more like the luxury linen in the high roller’s suite. Winner Winner Hazy IPA is… well, it’s a winner.
First the aroma of lemon and lime sorbet fills your nose, then when you start to drink you can all but feel the viscous spread of melted sorbet across your tongue. Sweet stone fruit and tropicals soon come along for the ride. But you know what doesn’t come along for the ride? Anything tannic or astringent or bitey or burny. There’s none of that at all - just a tasty hug of fruitiness with a slight cereal character and the softest bitterness at the end.
Like the name, it’s a beer worth repeating.
Well, Five Barrel, if you wanted to get Video Killed The Radio Star stuck in my head, you did an excellent job. (The film clips I just watched on YouTube may have contributed as well.)*
Radio Star Oat Cream IPA is made with a hop bill boasting Cascade, Motueka, Mosaic, Citra and Idaho 7, and the brewery lists aroma and tasting notes of ripe tropical fruit, passionfruit, pineapple, rockmelon, citrus, sweet oranges and tangelos. But, for me, this was one of those beers where all the layers of flavour meld together seamlessly, and I wasn’t really able to distinguish between them (other than the grapefruit peel and creamy vanilla undertones that paved the way). It’s smooth and sweet and bursting with fruit, and it left a lovely lasting impression, even if my brain wasn’t able to grasp each detail.
It tasted like Hans Zimmer on the keyboard and Adam Sandler sporting a permed mullet.**
Mick Wüst
*I watched the original 1979 clip by The Buggles first, because of course they deserve the credit. But like many Millennials, I was most familiar with the 1998 version by The Presidents of the United States of America. Are we just about due for another cover of this song? Or perhaps an update - A.I. Bot Killed The Instagram Star?
**See the aforementioned music videos to enjoy these references in full.
Published February 13, 2024 2024-02-13 00:00:00
