Nøgne Ø: Himla Humla (Norway: Low Alcohol: 0% ABV)
Visual: Hazy lemon juice color body. A good inch or so of white mounded head that leaves lace. Some small bubbled carbonation.
Nose: Lemon curd. Grapefruit. Creamy. Greenery. Light peppermint.
Body: Moderate bitterness. Shortbread. Iced tea. Vanilla toffee. Slight ice cream syrup.
Finish: Greenery. Iced tea. Vanilla extract. Nice hop character. Peach syrup. Growing growling bitterness. Grapes.
Conclusion:This is … interesting. It is definitely not the standard IPA, even in this day and age of NEIPA which have been, erm, expanding what that means. However that does not mean this is bad.
This is pretty sweet and creamy, with lots of lemon curd, vanilla and cream. In fact if you had told me this was a low alcohol take on a milkshake IPA I would have believed you. Also I would like it more than 90% of the shit that is the milkshake IPA style. Not a fan of most of those.
There are some grapes and grapefruit notes in there giving some sweet and fresh hop flavours, and that hop character shows itself presently and with some bitterness as well. Not in a traditional IPA style but they are there – especially in the finish where it lies with a nice growling bitterness.
There is also a LOT of that iced tea style that seemed to be the bane of a lot of the alcohol free drinks. Here it is not the worst, it mostly works with the beer, but it is very obvious.
It all results in an interesting, unusual, alcohol free beer. Not the best, not bad, just weird.
Does the job but in the oddest way possible.
Background: Another of the three Nøgne Ø zero alcohol beers I found at Independent Spirit, which I am using to make my dry drinking days more enjoyable. First one went well, so had high hopes for this. I checked the beer bottle while drinking as I was certain this had either oats or wheat used to make it and found out both were, in fact, used – a common trick with low alcohol beer to add some more mouthfeel and such. Music wise I continued my old punk bands kick with Vice Squad: Stand Strong, Stand Proud. I really should listen to other music styles as well at some point.
