Screw the preamble. Bridge Road are starting a new IPA program, and the first tinnie off the line has gone off like a stick of dynamite in a fruit stand – it’s packing Mosaic, Galaxy and El Dorado hops, as well as Sabro hops two ways.
Glowing gold with a sea foam head, the Hazy Double hits the nose as a huge bowl of mango drizzled with coconut cream. But in the mouth it refracts into a plethora of tropical flavours: imagine you’re stuck in the stocks, helpless before a crowd of rowdy people hurling every tropical fruit they can find straight at you. Mango, passionfruit, pawpaw, you name it. A whole pineapple, a few coconut halves, the lot. These people have a lot of fruit on their hands and not much else to do today.
As violent as this sounds (being pelted with whole pineapples and coconut halves isn’t everyone’s idea of a good time), this beer goes down smoothly for 7.6 percent ABV. The Sabro silkiness and gentle boozy warmth make it all OK – to get back to the strange stocks scenario, let’s say someone slipped you a sedative to help you cope with the barrage of fruit to the face.
If this all sounds a little overwhelming to you, perhaps you’ll prefer the brewer’s tasting notes: "some tropical juiciness on the palate and a super silky mouthfeel make way for a subtle coconut sweetness on the finish, which is balanced out with a medium bitterness”.
Personally, I think the lobbed fruits capture this beer better.
Mick Wust
Published November 20, 2020 2020-11-20 00:00:00
