Wild Beer Co: Evolver IPA (England: IPA: 5.8% ABV)
Visual: Cloudy apricot. Moderate white bubbled head.
Nose: Grapefruit. Lemon. Yeasty. Banana sweets. Slightly sharp. Apricot syrup. Lightly peppery.
Body: Juicy apricot. Dry mango. Peppered crackers. Yeasty. Slightly tart feel. Pineapple.
Finish: Pepper and yeasty. Dry. Hop bitterness. Light lemon and dry mango. Pineapple in a very fresh way.
Conclusion: Wild Beer keep turning out beers to impress and intrigue. This one calls to the recent white IPA trend with its Belgian characteristics, yet also solidly slams the American style IPA hops home in a big fruity way.
It doesn’t go as heavily Belgium styled as most white IPAs I have tried, but is still full of eclectic yeasty and slightly tart character. Despite the use of Bret yeast it is pretty far from being a sour, but does blend some of the notes of those beers in, just enough to create a blend of the two big craft beer loves – hops and sourness.
It works very well, contrasting and emphasising the respective elements. It results in a beer that is challenging, dry in fruit tones at times and dry in feel while being nicely but not excessively hopped. Together this some how creates a beer that is thirst quenching and easy to drink despite the big bouncing flavours.
The fruit is good, the bitterness good, the light tartness refreshing, and the pepper and yeast intriguing. This is great beer alchemy. Much more approachable that it’s closest equivalent from Anchorage Brewing, though not as odd and complex as a trade off.
As it builds up the hops take musky mid body and yet more tart in the pineapple finish. Again a great contrast leading to great drinkability. It is a challenging beer, though far from Cantillon level challenge, but for people looking for something out there it is just lovely.
Background: Here’s another unusual one from Wild Beer Co, this time an IPA made with Brett, the yeast normally used for making spontaneous fermentation beers. Apparently it should change a lot over time, so I have one beer for now, and one stored for a bit of aging to see what happens to it. This was picked up from Independent Spirit, and drunk while listening to Breaking Bad Meets Metal (Having recently received series 5 of Breaking Bad I’m on a bit of a BB kick at the moment – up there with The Wire for all time great shows)
