After four chapters of their Pursuit Of Hoppiness, the brewers at Hargreaves Hill are moving onto a new story, swapping hops for fruit. Well, sort of... There's still the matter of 17 grams per litre of Azacca, Mosaic and Galaxy added to the first Fruitopia release at various stages of dry-hopping but the point here is the fruit: no less than 15 percent of the total liquid in Shadows In The Forest is made up of fresh blackberries and raspberries.
As you may well expect, the result is rather smoothie like, a dense, blood orange / plummy affair in your glass, although were you blindfolded you might not hit on that image in your mind's eye at first as the lactose hits hardest on the nose. Initial aromas are creamy and vanilla like with the berries and fruitiness from the hops peeking out from underneath like a smothered summer berry sponge. (I'll admit if anyone can say with any confidence where the berries end and the hops begin, hats off, as the fruitier side of Fruitopia 1 is all rather enmeshed.)
Flavours are served up with a similar weighting, although it's on the palate the hops make most notable contribution as there's a drying bitterness running through its midst, the starkest reminder this is indeed a beer – whatever that means these days – and not a creamy, slightly tart smoothie.
James Smith
Published March 4, 2020 2020-03-04 00:00:00