Craft beer may never have been more popular and widely available than it is now, however there still must be so much that remains completely inscrutable to the average punter. Case in point: DDH Imperial Cryo NEIPA. It sounds less like a delicious beverage and more like some kind of dumb transportation system Elon Musk “invented” that’s just less efficient in every conceivable way than a train.
Which brings us to Frenchies' latest – a duo of Tropical Mists, a lil’ boy and a thicc boy. I mean, the lil’ boy is still a 7 percent ABV IPA so it’s all about perspective, I guess?
Tropical Mist pours like pineapple juice with a fluffy head and juicy fruit aromas. A big hit of pineapple and coconut cream means you don’t even need to check the side of the tin to know there’s no small amount of Sabro in the mix. Throw in a bit of ripe mango from the Mosaic then dank pine from the Strata and Columbus and, baby, you got yourself a stew going! The fruit salad mélange continues on the palate while leaning into some sticky hop resin and a hefty punch of bitterness to round it all out. It’s well attenuated with minimal residual sugars so it’s more of a pleasant morning mist as opposed to an oppressive humid swamp kind of deal.
Thick Tropical Mist is almost the same beer with Simcoe subbed in for Mosaic and a bigger malt bill to bump it up to 8.5 percent ABV. A proper beer writer would have done a side by side comparison and not scoffed the first one in roughly six minutes while making dinner, but alas. Despite the changes, the only major differences I could spot were a more pronounced piney character, a stickier resin mouthfeel and a bit more spice and warmth at the end.
Judd Owen
Published November 18, 2020 2020-11-18 00:00:00
