Bobcaygeon Northern Lights Hazy IPA (6.1%)

When the previously unknown to me Bobcaygeon Brewing submitted their Bobtoberfest Festbier to last month’s Oktoberfest beer-a-palooza, they also sent along a couple of other of their mainstays, including this hazy IPA. Described on the label as “Tropical – Hazy – Juicy” it didn’t exactly fill me with eager anticipation, as I’ve certainly had my fill by now of this ubiquitous sort of Ontario craft beer.

Turns out I was greatly mistaken. Or perhaps better, misled.

Somewhat hesitantly popping a can last weekend, I was delighted to discover that Bobcaygeon’s definition of “juicy” is not necessarily the same as mine, at least so far as it applies to IPAs. Sure, I noted some fruitiness in my glass, and yes, a rich, tropical fruit aroma, as well, but there was also plenty of quite apparent Old School IPA hoppiness to Northern Lights, a fact which delighted me to no end.

I set aside my second can for a proper tasting.  

While it pours a properly hazy light gold topped with a respectably persistent head of white foam, and offers plenty of pineapple and mango in the aroma, there is also a significant undercurrent of grapefruity citrus on the nose. Enough, in fact, that once the beer has been swirled a couple of times and the intensity of the pineapple has reduced significantly, I could almost convince myself that I was smelling a proper, west coast style IPA from back in the twenty-aughts.

On the palate, the experience is quite similar. The entry is all sweet fruit – there’s that pineapple again, although this time with as much papaya and sweet orange as mango – but that soon gives way to a rising citrus bitterness, not quite Sierra Nevada Torpedo-like, but certainly notable. That citrus sits in harmony with the slowly dissolving notes of tropical fruit until the finish, where it grows a bit more obvious. There is a bit of the back-of-the-throat hop burn that is common in many if not most hazies, but it is mercifully understated, especially in contrast to the lingering notes of pink grapefruit zest.

If describing Northern Lights as “Tropical – Hazy – Juicy” gets people to drink it, then I have no problem with the labelling of this beer, even if I don’t completely agree with it. Then again, perhaps this is exactly the sort of ‘gateway beer’ that can lure hazy drinkers back towards the balanced bitterness of what North American IPA once was.

89 ($3.95/473 ml)