Southern Grist has been fairly consistent in the high quality of their beers. They had one particular outlier, and that was a dessert beer. Dessert beers are notoriously difficult to get exactly right, and I certainly won't overly chastise a brewery for having one beer that falls outside the margins. As this is an IPA, I anticipate I'm not going to have to give any more allowances, at least for this beer.
First sip lacks the dry finish and bitter hit that are typical of a dry hopped beer. Instead, the lead-in seems slightly dry with bitterness casting a shadow across the tangerine, grapefruit, orange, lemon, and mango sitting underneath it. Shockingly, this seems like this could be a perfectly good sipping beer. Most IPAs are too unrestrained to properly service a sip, but this one seems to do just fine.
Tip-in is a somewhat bitter and tart mist above a pond of citrus fruits with carbonation lapping gently at the shoreline. The middle is a wave of carbonation on the roof of the mouth while the fruits stretch out into a very mild version of themselves and the bread crust malt channels them down the throat. The finish is a peak of bitterness before a reluctantly dry and vaguely sweet trail off.
Bottom Line: It has its own way of doing things, and that's fine by me.
3.0/5