949. Fretboard Brewing – Sapphire Haze Hazy IPA

Posted By kkozlen on Apr 27, 2020 | 0 comments

So we’re in the sixth week of shelter-in-place during the coronavirus pandemic. We’ve been very fortunate to be able to work from home and get some much needed house projects completed. After finishing tiling my kids bathroom this evening, it was definitely time for a beer. My sister brought me this beer a couple of months ago from a trip she took to Cincinnati, although it says it was canned on 8/19/2019. I also recently shared my review of Fretboard’s Brut IPA and got a nice response from them, so I thought I’d have this one.

Location: Poured from the 12oz can into a TEKU pint glass at my home in Bloomington, IL.

Numbers: 6.7% ABV, 23 IBUs, ~210 Calories

Appearance & Aroma: It has an orange-gold color and is pretty hazy with an inch-thick, fluffy white head that fell to a thin layer over the top after a few minutes. It has a citrusy-tropical aroma with a good amount of lemon, orange and pineapple.

Taste & Feel: The body is medium and the mouthfeel is smooth and lightly creamy from the head, followed by a slight crispness from the carbonation and hoppiness. It has a citrusy juiciness up front with an orange-pineapple hoppiness with hints of grassy pineyness. In the middle, the bitterness comes in with an orange rind-pineapple flavor, but in the finish, the bitterness gives way a bit to the citrusy hop juiciness. The finish was nicely balanced between bitterness and juicy hop flavors, however, it’s the bitterness that lasts for a minute or two in the aftertaste.

Food Pairing: The citrusy juiciness would go great with a great southwest pasta dish I used to love that has a lot of onions, red and banana bell peppers. I think the sweetness of the onions and peppers would nicely balance the bitterness of this beer, making for a great pairing.

Overall Impression: I enjoyed the citrusy-tropical fruit juiciness of this beer, as it nicely balanced both hop bitterness and flavor, leaning a bit toward hop flavors. The flavors definitely lend themselves to this being a summer beer, as the lemony, orange and pineapple flavors would be refreshing on a hot day. Overall, this is a very good IPA and one that I’ll pick up again if I’m in the area.

My Rating: