Try?
I have a confession to make. When it comes to beer reviews on Youtube, most just leave me dry. There are only a handful of real reviewers out there that I really enjoy, one of them being Jeff Lyons of New England Beer Reviews fame. Jeff sticks to local New England breweries for the most part, and he does them justice every time. His reviews are always fun to watch, and he makes me really want to find the beer he’s talking about.
Jeff’s reviews of Hooksett, New Hampshire’s White Birch Brewing Company certainly left me wanting to try their beers. I wasn’t sure that I would get the chance, though, without a trip to New England. Hence my surprise when I saw gleaming bottles of White Birch Brewing Hop Session Anglo-American IPA on the shelves at Total Wine not long ago.
Although the label says “Anglo-American IPA”, this beer seems more of an American Pale Ale to me. The gravity and alcohol content is far too low to be an IPA (the label says my bottle has an alcohol content of 5.2% by volume). In many cases, I end up sitting on new beers purchased for a while, especially in bombers and fifths. This isn’t a beer intended for aging, though (says so on the label, and I concur). My bottle of Hop Session, though, packaged in February of 2013, went straight into the fridge, and down my gullet a few nights later.
Description from the label:
“Hop Session is in. Starting with a blend of west coast hops for a balanced, bitter effect. We close the session out by late hopping the beer for a nice resiny mouth feel.”
White Birch Brewing Hop Session Anglo-American IPA pours to a deep orange amber color with a medium sized head of sparsely packed bubbles and a zesty resiny hop nose. I get light caramel in the palate at first, but the hops really emerge quickly, resiny in aroma with some herbal grassiness and a long lingering, dry grassy bitterness. As the beer warms, there’s a sharp grapefruit character almost like chewing on bitter grapefruit seeds if that makes sense to you.
Kudos for the nice use of west coast and English hops, at least I get their grassy bitterness here. There is no list of hop varieties used on the bottle, and although the brewery website seems to imply that there have been multiple iterations of this beer in the past, no mention is made of the 2013 release.
A very drinkable beer perfect for an afternoon’s sipping, I just love the hop attack in the finish. The price is right, too, at $6.99 for the 22-ounce bottle.
And remember, try a new beer today, and drink outside the box.
*Pricing data accurate at time of review or latest update. For reference only, based on actual price paid by reviewer.
(B)=Bottled
(D)=Draft
(G)=Growler
