Honky Tonk "Hazefest" IPA

After staggering the beer community (me) with their impressive start, I have genuinely found it difficult to encounter new variations from this local brewery. Maybe it's just that the ones they came out with before were so good that they didn't need to branch out. Well, they appear to have branched. I couldn't be happier to be trying out a new brew from these guys.

The beer does come out hazy, but I'm not certain that it is significantly hazier than the world champion IPA I last had from Honky Tonk. I can certainly say that this beer produces a whole lot more bubbles. Those bubbles are absolutely enormous, and they take longer to go down then you would expect from bubbles this big. The patchy head gloms on to the side of the glass on top of the beverage with only remnants of lacing permitted in its wake. The aroma is tropical fruit and grains.

First sip is strangely smooth. Dry hopped beers tend to add a little bit of musk to the flavor, and I was really expecting a lingering bitterness. Instead, the beer dries out at the end after a reasonable amount of fruits. The malt produces a lot of grain, but it melds into the hops almost seamlessly, so the resulting sip is not jarring at all, but it conveys a vibrant flavor.

Tip-in is sweet with carbonation sizzling and tropical fruit peels laid bare across the tongue. The carbonation backs off a bit while the tropical fruits infuse themselves into assorted, nondescript grains. The finish eases bitterness across the top of the mouth as the sweetness rises to even everything out for the tropical trail off.

Bottom Line: There's no denying that these guys are very good.

4.75/5