Beer – #682 – Garage Project – Death From Above
It was a tough call at the fill station today, but I went with Garage Project Death From Above, a beer I’ve had in bottles, and one that I rated highly then. So Fusion, Fusion, Confusion and Friction.
Have you ever tried a Vietnamese mango and chilli salad
From the fill station then, 1 litre of beer that is of 225 calories a serving size, and is 7.5% ABV, so 5.92 standard drink units.
Brewed by Garage Project in the style: India Pale Ale (IPA) and they are Wellington, New Zealand
Inspired by the heat and freshness of Indochine flavours and the high citrus intensity of American hops, Death From Above combines mango, Vietnamese mint, lime and chili with Centennial, Amarillo and Citra hops. The result is intense, but the name is misleading. This is a beer of balance rather than conflict with bitter-sweet, heat and citrus character.
This has been one of the most challenging Garage brews to date. At its heart was the idea of combining aggressive, high citrus character of American hops with the heat and sweetness of Indochine flavours.
Another beer I’m happy about
Have you ever tried a Vietnamese mango and chilli salad? If you haven’t you should. It could be life changing. It was always going to be a challenging brew to pull off – mango, chili, Vietnamese mint and lime juice aren’t exactly conventional ingredients.
Don’t bother checking, they aren’t listed in the Reinheitsgebot.
Add a lavish addition of Chinook, Centennial, Citra and Amarillo hops, without any chance for small scale testing and you get what could have been a recipe for spectacular, monumental disaster.
The idea of trying to bring all these flavours together in a coherent way given the pressure of time and prospect of public humiliation was, frankly, shit scary
So, what could possibly go wrong?
Sugary rich aroma, plenty of carbonate going on when the top is popped. Great looking dark wish polished chestnut brown.
Pour is lovely with a well decent fluffy white head that pops and crackles, one of those noisy beers. Lot more grapefruit citrus grass aroma in the glass.
This is brilliantly bitter, really sharp and no nonsense, but with a lovely sweetness about it too. Finish isn’t like I expected, it’s not dry, and there is a lovely linger.
That slight and background chilli, pepper, sharpness is interesting too, But it is the lovely unpretentious quality and all round goodness of this beer that is the most outstanding, it is well balanced, sharp where it has to be, sweet where it needs to be, and isn’t so much of a mouthful that you have to pause and breathe between sups.
As well as some music playing the TV is showing on mute the AFL grand Final. Now that is a sport for fit people!
Back to the beer as I marvel at the athletes, in a manly appreciation way, and in the few minutes of warming in the glass this has gained slightly more depth and grassy hint, which just makes it somewhat better.
This then, to summarise, is a bit good. It is lovely drinking, decently bitter, but not puckeringly so, has some sweetness and body, has a nice finish that does nothing to harm the palate and you get a lovely mouthful and lingering of sweet sugar on the lips. It really is like some exotic dance with a dusky maiden, all dreamy and seductive.
The pdubyah-o-meter rates this as 9 of its things from the thing. So close to being 10. I have to stay strong and to my guns on this, 9 is brilliant beer, and today the tap list at the fill station made this a hard call with other really really good beers, but this wins that round, because sometimes good is just good. This is not as bitter as some IPA beers, it’s also not as grassy resinous as a lot, and it has brilliant aroma, colour and looks great in the glass, and if you can get some I would strongly urge you to get some, it really is a bit good.
The double dip review
- Am I enjoying it? This is just a bloody good beer.
- Would I have another? I would, and I don’t know if asking MrsPhil to pop up the flirtation to get me more will get me anywhere, it is wildly drinkable even at the slightly higher ABV thing.
- Would I share with a friend on a porch and set the world to rights? I would, I’d bring as much as I could carry, and I have two hands and everything.
Music for this : ” Foals ” ” What Went Down” on the Spotify of course, Foals are a five-piece English indie rock band from Oxford, England.
INDIA PALE ALE & IPA
gets its name and unique style from British brewers who were making beer for export to India. This style has an intense hop flavor which was used to preserve the beer for the long voyage. India Pale Ale has a golden to copper color with a medium maltiness and body. The aroma is moderate to very strong. IPAs work especially well at cutting the heat of chili, vindaloo or Sichuan cuisine.
A life just as ordinary 