Barrier: Money 2 Times Dry Hopped IPA (USA: IPA: 7.3% ABV)
Visual: Pale hazy lemon juice color. Huge white mounded ice cream float looking head that leaves suds. Moderate bubbled carbonation and some sediment on final pour.
Nose: Pineapple. Juicy. Wheaty hop character and low but present bitterness. Slightly dry. Lemon juice. Vanilla ice cream.
Body: Vanilla. Buttery. Good hop character. Vanilla ice cream. Kiwi and lime. Resinous. Lots of greenery. Hop oils. Lightly “dank”. Apricot. Creamy. Custard notes.
Finish: Good hop bitterness. Choc toffee eclairs sweets. Good hop character. Some charring. Hop oils. Resinous and “dank”.
Conclusion: Ok there is some serious sediment and haze in this beer, it just didn’t come out in my first pour. The second pour where I emptied the can emptied everything out and really changes this beer!
On first pour this had a good hop character and some bitterness, but it pushed the fruit character more with great kiwi character, and some apricot and pineapple. It had some resinous and hop oil characteristics but they served more as a backing to a fruity IPA.
Then, after taking my time to enjoy this I rolled the remainder of the beer around the can and added it into the glass for a nice refill. Instantly it is more hazy – I was suddenly nervous, was this going to go full NEIPA on me and just be all fruit and hide the hops? Then I saw the sediment that came with it. Was this a good sign of hop character, a sign of bad filtering, a problem, an opportunity, all of the above?
I should not have worried. It became oily, resinous and yes …sigh ..”dank” – all nicely bitter. Whatever had been left in the latter third of the can made this the beer I wanted as soon as it was poured in. Still fruity, but now with the hops up front in all their varied resinous, oily, bitter and fluffy stylings.
Still lightly caramel sweet, with a creamy thick body, but now using it all to kick. Sweet apricot, kiwi, etc are all still there. Custard and toffee notes and still there, especially in the finish, but holy heck it kicks the hops up a notch.
I am digging it. The second pour took this from good to great. Enjoy it if you can.
Background: Independent Spirit had a bunch of breweries from USA I’d not encountered before in, so I decided to grab a couple to try. With a weak pound and all the crap going on we don’t get many of the less mainstream USA breweries these days so was very happy to try. Went mainly with some IPAs as, in general, it seems to be a style where the USA does it best. I don’t know what it is, and it is generalising a massive amount of breweries both in the USA and the world, but they seem to hit the spot more often than most. Anyway, this is a double dry hopped version of the original Money, which I have not drunk so cannot compare. On ratebeer this is listed as a NEIPA – while it is slightly cloudy on the eye it didn’t really hit me as that, but maybe that is because I enjoyed it and I am massively biased against NEIPAs. Who can say? Went with Evil Scarecrow: Galactic Hunt as backing music. Funny, b-movie, horror Metal. Something absurd and fun was just what I needed.
