Crew Republic: Detox (Germany: Session IPA: 3.4% ABV)
Visual: Cloudy lemon to apricot. Large sudded yellowed head. Unsure on carbonation due to the cloudy nature.
Nose: Pineapple. Pine cones. Custard. Sweet lemon curd. Crisp. Cream. Present hops. Apricot.
Body: Good bitterness. Malt drinks. Hop character. Slightly chalky. Dirty water. Kind of lemon touched.
Finish: Malt drinks. Bitterness. Granite. Dried apricot. Malt chocolate. Kind of floral.
Conclusion: Ohh, and it was doing so well! Interesting look on the pour, a nice hazy character and it follows that up with an appealing smooth, fruity, and slightly hoppy aroma. So, all that going on and it has a low abv that should make it a session beer.
Then I took a sip.
Yeah, well, you know what I said in my last review about beers that don’t live up to their aroma? That would be this beer. This so does not live up to its aroma.
The main body is just kind of malt drink, mixed with muddy water. OK, tad over harsh, it does have admittedly good bitterness, but the rest of the beer’s body is so leaden. It is so very disappointing. Then the finish just puts the nails in the coffin of the beer. It is just granite, malt and bitterness. There is no good hook to this beer. You can feel the ghost edge of fresh fruit flavor trying to push past the muck, you almost get lemon and apricot. Almost, but failing.
So, it is just dull, not chemically and offensive. The dirty water bit is pretty bad, but that is a quite minor touch thankfully, mostly it is just really dull. Like drinking stale bread and hops.
Ah well, can’t win them all.
Background: So this is called a session IPA. Now at 3.4% BAV it even fits my definition of session, but the idea of a session IPA confused me so I had a look and…that is an actual recognised style now? Ok, huh, erm, ok. But, but an IPA is supposed to be high alcohol, that is pretty much the definition! Ah screw it, I accepted Black IPA, White IPA, Red IPA and Brown IPA. I can live with session IPA. Anyway, on first glance I thought this was a Czech Republic, but no, it is actually part of the small craft beer scene of Germany. This was drunk while nursing my aching hands after failing to complete the final level of “They Bleed Pixels” with all pages after TWO HOURS. I have since managed it. Ouch that was hard. I’m just rambling now…Oh, did I mention I bought this at Independent Spirit? Because I did.
