As far as I can tell, this is my first beer from Abomination Brewing Company. These guys are out of Boston, Massachusetts, and this particular beer has been double dry hopped. I've had quite a few DIPAs recently, but most of them aren't particularly hoppy. I would typically expect dry hopping to be something that happens to a regular IPA, but this might be a good spin on the Double India Pale Ale formula.
The orange beer is very dense, and only minimal light is going to get through the middle, and that's if you're trying. The head - I would say - is just about right, and it fizzles away leaving no lacing on the sides. Instead, there's just a very thin sheet of medium-sized bubbles that gets thicker around the glass. You don't have to tell me this is well hopped. The aroma is telling me all I need to know about the heavy orange, grapefruit, passionfruit, and even a little peach that inevitably must be coming from the hops.First sip is not at all what I expected. Like, not even a little. The beer is dusty, hollow, dry, a little bitter, and lacks the usual brightness of a DIPA. I guess they named this right, as this does put me in mind of a fog - it's like a fog of hops. The hops are all insubstantial, but they're giving you an impression of being there rather than directly acting on your tastebuds. I'm not sure I would sip this very long. Fortunately, that's not really what I do.
Tip-in is dry, passionfruit, orange, and a heavy grain. The middle is where everything was sitting, and the sip just can't get to it: big, juicy fruits of apricot, grapefruit, passionfruit, peach, and orange are nestled into that grain basket very nicely. The finish is a sprightly wave of carbonation across the tongue followed by a dry longing this for more of those juicy fruits.
Bottom Line: If you drink it properly, you'll probably like it.
3.5/5
