They say it’s not what you know, but who you know. To this end, One Drop partnered with Yakima Chief Hops to get their hands on fresh hops landing in Australia from the latest crop from the USA’s West Coast. While One Drop puts out hazies abundant in both number and opacity, head brewer Nick is partial to West Coast IPAs, and so has jammed all the fresh Simcoe, Citra, Centennial, Idaho 7 and Cascade hops he could wrangle from Yakima into a bright and beautiful IPA.
When I poured Fresh Off The Boat into my glass, the words "oh my goodness" escaped my lips involuntarily. Waves of hop aroma violated my nose in the best possible way, like someone had stuffed one nostril with candied citrus peel and the other with slivers of dried pineapple. (Always cut your dried pineapple into slivers before trying to insert it up your nostril. It’s just common sense.)
Once I regained my composure and took a sip, I found that the citrus peel took on a pithy bitterness and a whack of resin joined the pineapple – not savoury resin like in some West Coasts, but a nuanced resin that took on the softer and sweeter character of the fruits it was accompanying. The hop flavours kept unfolding as the thick liquid settled into each corner of my mouth, and eventually left a balanced bitterness that focused on the tongue while the sweetness was left to itself around the edges.
And, while it’s hardly necessary to make this beer worthwhile, the label art on the can is sufficiently sexy to match the drink inside – streaks of watercolour blue bleed into metallic silver to create an ocean vista you want to stare at, while a couple of small boats beckon to you for a serene afternoon on the water.
Put me on a boat with a Fresh Off The Boat and I’ll be a happy man.
Mick Wust
Published March 12, 2021 2021-03-12 00:00:00
