Fogged Out Hazy IPA

Fogged Out Hazy IPA by FlyteCo Brewing was reviewed under 2021 BJCP Category 21C, Hazy IPA. The beer is served at 46^o in a tall narrow krug after a heavy pour. The beer pours a milky dark yellow with a cream-colored head with a nice, fine texture and a good but not great foam stand.

The aroma is a bright tropical/citrus and resinous fruit salad — pineapple, orange, mango, kiwi and even a little papaya with a hint of piney-ness. As the foam subsides and the beer warms, a light honey-malty sweetness is quite evident as is a backdrop of ethanol.

The beer starts lush, sweet and quite fruity, almost blowing though the relatively low bitterness of the mid-palate — lots of mango and juicy pineapple and sweet orange rounding out a clean and crackery malt sweetness that lasts well into the juicy finish. The beer tastes fresh and fruity with a nice, creamy texture but low conditioning. The late finish has good hop flavor/residual malt sweetness, rendering an overall off-dry balance that is not cloying.

I am admittedly a bit over hazy IPA — the beers are often too sweet for my preferences, and more problematically, the trendy massive off-boil hop additions don’t make for very stable products. This beer has a nice fresh hop character, a semi-sweet and thick/creamy malt structure, but the finish is still pretty tight. The bitterness is low for my tastes, but that’s all they are — tastes. The pineapple-orange character makes me think tacos al pastor would pair really well.