It's been a big few weeks for Scott and Renae from Wolf Of The Willows, what with securing their own brewery site that's set to open in 2020 and marking a half decade of beers. And they've celebrated the latter with a suitably big beer, one that takes their debut XPA and ratchets it up to double the size and throws in a triple dry-hop with Mosaic, Galaxy, Kahatu and Nelson Sauvin for good measure. Oh, and it's in big black cans too, complete with bold red lettering, the XXX perhaps intended as a not-too-subtle warning as to what lies inside.
And what is that? Well, it's a collision of hops and booze, of course, with the two combining to create heaps of stewed tropical and citrusy fruits and sweet, spicy alcohol-derived aromas. It pours with a lovely golden orange hue – the sort that tells you there's density to the liquid inside, one that translates, unsurprisingly, to a little stickiness and booze flavour alongside those dense fruits on the palate and some tingly warmth too.
As Renae put it succinctly in a text: "It's a sipper."
James Smith
Published November 17, 2019 2019-11-17 00:00:00
