Hobbit Juice

Beer’d Hobbit Juice
Growlette, $?, 9.2% ABV

At the brewery, Stonington

HOBBIT”Dude, you haven’t had Hobbit Juice?”
“Sure I have. It’s great!”
“Why haven’t you reviewed it yet? What’s wrong with you?”
“Kind sir, I have like 100 Connecticut beers for which to write up one of these reviews. To catch up at any point in the near future would be positively Gandalfian. But by the power of Smaug, I shall do so some day. I promise.”
“Yeah, so… are you gonna do Hobbit Juice?”

I hate you all.

As you all surely know by now, IPAs and DIPAs are right in Beer’d’s wheelhouse. Aaren has quickly become a master of this family of beers, and as far as in-state masters are concerned, there are but two. You all know the other. (As an unabashed citrus-forward DIPA fan, all you other brewers are free to expand that list any time you wish.) Beer’d’s Stonington location might as well be Rivendell to most of Connecticut, but for me, it’s my own personal journey to the Misty Mountains. For vast treasure awaits there.

(All this Hobbit referencing is actually on point, just in case you non-nerds were doubting me…)

And yes, I’d totally smite Smaug if that’s what it took to get my hands on fresh Beer’d. Fortunately, some money and a car is all I need.

Beer’d Says:

“Single hopped with Nelson Sauvin. This floral beer offers flavors of white wine and stone fruit.”

Plot shift forthcoming.
Good to know: Nelson Sauvin is a hop varietal from New Zealand.

Ok, let’s talk about the Mûmakil in the Room. Again, if you’re the type of person to be reading this beyond the grade and the picture, you may be aware of New England Brewing’s Coriolis. Coriolis is delicious and guess what? It’s also DIPA single-hopped with Nelson Sauvin. For whatever insane reason, people seem to enjoy my review of it. It’s long and silly (duh), but here it is for your perusal. Focus on the tap handle stuff.

Yup, it features a hobbit. (We’ll ignore the Jurassic Park nonsense over there.) Collusion? Theft? Coincidence?

I’ll bet my life on the latter. Apparently, thanks to Peter Jackson, people of a certain demographic (read: White guys in their 30’s who love high quality craft beer) equate New Zealand with hobbits. In case any of you were wondering, hobbits are fictitious. Sorry brah, it’s true. I equate hobbits with The Shire and Middle-Earth rather than New Zealand, but I get the relationship. I do. And I get that that relationship is so strong, that out state’s best two breweries made the same beer and used the same “mascot” so to speak. It happened, and it’s fine and no one got hurt.

And both beers are great.

And that’s an elf in my picture, not a hobbit so all you white guys in your 30’s who love craft beer, leave me alone on that score.

YOUareAnerdAnother thing I find interesting about both Coriolis and Hobbit Juice is that there is this group of super duper Connecticut craft beer aficionados who cite Coriolis as their favorite of the NEBCO single-hop line-up (take THAT Fuzzy Baby Ducks) and their favorite Beer’d as well. It’s almost like Nelson Sauvin has this grip on the collective super fans; its magical hold is Gandalfian.

Me? I love any citrusy hop to be honest with you, and can’t sit here and pretend Citra is better than Nelson or vice versa. A perfectly made beer, especially an IPA or a DIPA, with any old hop bill is still a perfectly made beer. The Hobbit Juice to me, however, was just shy of perfect. When you dance with single-hop hop bomb hop monsters, you dance close to the edge. To me, the Hobbit Juice was maybe a tad “too much” somehow. The aroma was ridiculous and the grapefruity and winey taste was delicious. The 9%+ ABV was completely hidden. But drinking even just a tulip of this was a bit intense. It was a bit of Nelson overload. Perhaps a stronger malt balance would push this to the A+ category – and let’s be clear here, this is an A beer, trending towards that elusive A+. I’m splitting Bilbo’s back hair here.

Slightly oily and resinous as well, but I usually can overlook that with this style of beer.

To sum up: Hobbits aren’t real, NEBCO and Beer’d both used Hobbits with their Nelson DIPAs, I’m a nerd, Back East’s Misty Mountain IPA is named for the Led Zeppelin song which was inspired by Tolkien mythology and not really the Tolkien mythology itself but that has nothing to do with this page, I finally learned how to spell aficionado, and for some reason I suggested that I hated you all, but that’s totally not true. Nothin’ but love – and I’m talkin’ Leia-Han Solo love here and wait, what? Different thing?

Thordamnit.

Overall Rating: A
Rating vs. Similar style: A-

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