Uinta Hop Nosh Tangerine IPA
And the fruit juice/peel/zest influenced IPA train keeps rolling with this latest offering from Uinta Brewing. I’ve had the company’s Hop Nosh and it’s a decent enough brew, but not my favorite example of the style. But, I’m always up for a challenge and decided to pick up a bottle of the Hop Nosh Tangerine which, as you might have guessed, is the company’s flagship IPA brewed with tangerine zest.
And much like the standard brew used in this variant, there are aspects of it which I enjoyed and others that I most decidedly did not. The tangerine influence only, for my palate at least, brings an increased measure of bitterness to the experience — not the welcome bitterness that a good hop blend provides, just bitter tangerine peel. This bitterness is amplified once the grapefruit notes and hop bite kick in. It’s a trait that, unfortunately, overwhelms the pleasant earthiness that the tangerine brings to the flavor.
This isn’t a bad beer and I’m sure the new kids rave about it, but for me, it’s not my thing. I can see what the brewery was trying to accomplish with the tangerine peel, but the added bitterness that it provides is too much for the base beer to be able to support. I’ll just stick with Uinta’s Labyrinth or Baba for now.