De Struise: Three Floyds: Shark Pants (Belgium: IIPA: 9% ABV)
Visual: Caramel brown, slightly opaque body with thin browned small bubbled head.
Nose: Sweet lime to choc lime sweets. Key-lime cheesecake. Sugared orange jelly sweets. Brown sugar. Popcorn like bitter hop aroma.
Body: Popcorn. Dry honey. Good bitterness. Orange skin. Black liquorice. Touch of sulfur. Eggplant. Some oily bitterness. Brown sugar.
Finish: Orange skin. Good bitterness. Charring. Touch of sulfur. Resinous. Slight oily bitterness. Slightly creamy. Brown sugar. Slightly leaden bitterness over time.
Conclusion: Ok, 1) This is not a NEIPA, thank fuck. 2) THIS IS NOT A NEIPA OR HAZY IPA THANK FUCK, 3) it mixed west coast IPA and Belgian IPA styles, two styles I absolutely adore but …. they are very different styles. I associate Belgian IPAs with smoother malt character due to the Belgian yeast, and some residual sweetness. While west coast I find tend to be drier with the malt out of the way leaving the heavy bitterness to do its job. Though googling suggest dryness is also considered part of the Belgian IPA style, if in a different way to west coast, so they may be closer than I first imagined. How well does this manage to thread the needle of these two styles?
Interestingly if not exceptionally is the answer.
The aroma is bunch of sweet fruit notes, definitely smoothed in an Belgian IPA way. The body has a real mix of sweeter notes that make me think more of east than west coast IPAs, yet attenuated enough and bitter enough that, ok, I see it, just with fruitier esters doing their thing. Its a nice mix, but the attempt to put so much in one place together does cause some rough edges.
There is a liquorice touch, never my favorite for beers like this, and a touch of eggplant savouriness that can work but is not the best here, and the bitterness can be a bit leaden in the finish.
All elements that bring the beer down a bit.
But, then again, fruit flavours meet smooth body, meets resinous and oily bitterness meets brown sugar sweetness. They are doing a hell of a lot, so I can put up with some rough edges. Its a wild mix of what works and what does not, a delightfully chaotic mix. Not one I can wholeheartedly recommend but one I am glad to have tried.
Plus, of course, it is not another bitty feeling, low bitterness, overly creamy , bloody hazy IPA
I hold grudges ok.
Background: I did a small grab of beers from rad beer recently as they had a few oddities I had not seen elsewhere. This one especially caught my attention, De Struise are great brewers, but it was their collaborators that really caught my eye – Three Floyds are legends of brewing, and apart from a short couple of years over a decade back, their beers pretty much never appear in the UK. Now a collaboration is not the same a solo beer from them, but I will 100% take it – especially with De Struise handling the main front of it. It is described as a West Cost Belgian Double IPA, which is such a weird conceit I just had to try it. It was listed as 2023 vintage which made me worried it may have lost some of the hoppiness, but it was bottled 2024 so with its high abv should still be lovely and hop fresh. Went with a band I only recently found out about – Voice Of Bacerot – the Retas album. A punk energy metal band from Indonesia which is incredibly impressive.