Northern Monks: Drew Millward: Passion Fruit Lassi IPA – Northern Tropics (England: IPA: 7.4% ABV)
Visual: Peach skin coloured body with a cloudy and semi opaque center. Not much carbonation. A large, just slightly yellowed white bubbled head.
Nose: Flour. Crisp hop character. Light pineapple and bitterness. Mild passion-fruit and guava.
Body: Peach and apricot. Caramel. Natural yogurt. Vanilla. Thick. Guava. Dried passion-fruit. Some hop oils. Chives. Slight peppermint. Slight sour cream. Sweet fudge.
Finish: Thick yogurt. Slight mint leaves and chives. Some bitterness. Nana bread. Slight cloying sweet toffee. Mango.
Conclusion: This is a mix of the expected and the unusual. On the unusual side this has a far thicker texture than most IPAs. It feels very natural yogurt influenced in both feel and taste. Nicely it is thick but not heavy, giving grip while still being pretty easy to drink in a kind of milkshake fashion. This styling also brings a slight sour cream and chives cloying note with a peppermint oddity mixed in – a mild note, but kind of refreshing as that. If I had to sum it up I would say that it has an element like this mint dips you get with your poppadoms in some restaurants.
So this has a thick base and some unusual fresh notes within that – they then layer that onto a more traditional big fruity character – passion-fruit, thick guava and some peach. It is slightly cloying in the thick flavor – very yogurt like still and very fruity – the extra grip and thickness pushes the level of fruitiness up without it feeling like just a fruit juice beer.
The thickness does have a few slight drawbacks though. One is that there is a strong vanilla sweetness to the middle of this – done in a similar style to what you would expect from bourbon barrel aging. The problem is that the cloying thickness interacts with that in such a way that makes it a tad artificial, and well, cloying sweetness. It isn’t hugely off-putting, but does rise over time to become more dominant than I would like.
So this is fruity and thick – slightly unusual – with a little bit less emphasis on the vanilla mixing with the sour cream and greenery notes I think it would work better and be an excellent beer. Not absent , just a tad more subtly used. As is they do hurt the beer a touch, but it is still very enjoyable in its fruity and thick style.
Odd, and pretty good but not great.
Background: Another of Northern Monk’s Patrons Projects – number 4.01 to be exact by the can. This time with Drew Millward, about whom google tells me very little. Anyway, awesome can design on this one – one of the main reasons it caught my eye at Independent Spirit. So I grabbed it. I am fickle that way. I’m not 100% sure if this thing’s name is Northern Tropics, Passion Fruit lassi IPA, or possibly both. Anyway, I looked up what lassi is after drinking – it is a yogurt based drink with spices and fruit that is popular in India. Which suddenly makes a bunch of my notes make more sense – I knew it was yogurt based but not the exact nature. This was drunk while listening to Miracle Of Sound’s Level 7. I’ve finally bought my own copy of it rather than listening to the youtube version. Still good stuff.
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