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I have a pretty negative view of Abita as a brewery, but the graph doesn't support that. Instead, it paints the picture of a very average brewery. So average, in fact, that they have nothing worse and nothing better than my average rating. Honestly, that probably makes them either disappointing or absolutely forgettable. Having remembered them (and not as a good brewery) I will designate them an average brewery. Still, with a significant enough sample size of 6 previous to this one, that's not stellar.
The very, very hazy yellow beer spouts a pretty average head with pretty much no lacing left in its wake. The aroma isn't the sweet malt that a lot of DIPAs manage to produce, but it is more fruit skins and pine. It seems like juice wanted to be here, but it got muzzled at some point, so now it leaves only the sting of fruit essence without the luxury of the fluidic juice. I legit don't know how this is going to go when I taste it.
First sip answers that question with a pretty hard smashing of my expectations. The pits and skins are here at the end, but they are only at the end. The rest of the sip is sweet and fruity. The fruits are juiced very well, and any pine I thought was here might be covered up in the end. This is a remarkably good sip based on how reluctant I was at the aroma, and now I need to dig a lot deeper.
Tip-in is very gentle carbonation caress with fruit esters spritzing themselves across the tongue. The middle arises with a juicy gush of refreshing and sweet liquid that bypasses the tongue mostly and lets carbonation hit the roof of the mouth while sweetness coddles the tongue. The finish is abrupt bitterness, stems, and pine before a dry and bitter trail off.
Bottom Line: They broke out of average.
3.25/5
