Slinking into 2025 comes Eagle Bay’s Hoops #6, a Brett IPA that has zero sense of urgency yet brings a diorama of flavour as a result, as you’re about to find out. The latest instalment in this exploratory, mixed-ferment series finds lactobacillus and French saison yeast completing the initial fermentation before the beer was dosed with Brettanomyces during an extensive four years ageing in stainless steel – this beer has slept through quite a lot!
Dry hopping upon bottling with brewery fave Nelson Sauvin Hop Kief from Freestyle Hops may well be the final rouse from slumber, imbuing a curious collection of fruity allure amid the lilting Brett barnyard and hay notes. Arriving full-bodied before quickly snapping dry, there’s juicy green papaya, tropical floral notes, melon, Nashi pear skin and mojito muddle. Then there’s more: a fairy floss thing, spiced apricot, gooseberry and a lasting abundance of gold kiwifruit – wild stuff, really.
Bretty straw textures rise against an initial juiciness, and while labelled IPA, bitterness isn't the prize here. Instead, the dance of bold hop aromatics and flavour that tango with Brett and time itself are cause for one to slow down, though perhaps not for four years.
Guy Southern
Published January 5, 2025 2025-01-05 00:00:00