Tag: monkish

Vinyl Vice from Monkish

Triple Indian Pale Ale, 10.3% ABV

Triple IPA with Citra and Simcoe

The beer is pale yellow color, very hazy/opaque. The foam is coarse and medium rich, lacing on glass. The beer smells tropical, showing POG, vanilla milk shake, orange juice, lemon peel, mango purée, pineapple, Piña Colada, coconut liquor noses. The beer is medium sweet, not bitter, bold, high viscosity, full bodied. It tastes jammy, subtle salty, not sticky, but thick. This is a mellow one. It shows a jammy marmalade aroma at the base level, showing fluffy orange popsicle, big ripe orange, there’s orange peel oil but not a lot, not lemony, mango and pineapple juice, passion fruit juice, orange liquor aromas. There’s a big bold orange, dried orange slice aromas in this beer. The aftertaste is warm, cypress, hemp, leafy, grassy. It’s delicious though, although it’s not the most complex hops choices. But this beer gives you a consistent “big in orange” flavor and aromas from beginning to the end. The cypress and leafy hops aroma is nice, adding a layer of airy forest floral aroma on top of the big orange profile. The aftertaste is easter heavy liquor, orange liquor, pineapple, hemp dankness, lemon zest aromas.

You won’t get wrong with Monkish’s hazy. This one is no exception. For a TIPA, this is bold and thick, but it’s not over-sweet. I like the added softness (salty mineral) in this beer, and there’s absolutely no hops burn. It’s just hops partridge, very comfortable and soothing. The aftertaste is actually super leafy, cypress, newly mowed lawn alike, probably that’s eclipsed by the big flavor of Citra, but the Simecoe flavor does show a dank west coast evergreen forest airy vibe. This is also not a super dank beer, but dank enough to make it feel adult-friendly. Dank aroma add a bit of funk to the super fruity tropical flavor, and then the early herbs dankness paint the beer from golden to green. I don’ know if that’s the intention of the beer label design. But it’s a bold one, probably that’s what the vinyl is referring to. But in overall the simple hops selection is brave, and the result is still a high quality hazy TIPA. There’re no punishment from bitterness or hops burn, it’s just a smooth, mellow flavor bomb.

Los Angeles Monkish of Anaheim from Monkish

DDH DIPA, 8.5% ABV

Double Dry Hopped (DDH) Double IPA with Galaxy, Citra, Enigma, Cashmere, and Krush hops.

The beer is pale orange color, very hazy. The foam is medium fine, a finger high, lacing on glass. The beer smells tropical, showing coconut liquor, POG, passion fruit, orange, guava, sweet pineapple, ripe mango, sweet mandarin noses. It smells splendid as usual. The beer is light to medium sweet, not bitter, medium body, pillowy creamy texture. There’s good about of ester aroma in this beer, and alcohol flavor is bright. The beer shows lemon peel, full crushed orange, marmalade, pineapple, melon, dank hemp herbs, mango puree, pine needles, orange peel essential oil, peach wedge aromas. There’s a lot of hops aromas, but it’s very hard to capture which is which. The oil content from hops leaves some hops burns, but it really bursts a lot of sparks of lemony, dank herbs stings.

TBH writing a tasting note for Monkish’s hazy is silly. Because most of time you can feel the fantastic depth of flavor and aromas in these hazy IPAs, you won’t get much bitter but the beer is not oversewed. You can feel the quality, but you just don’t have a good consistency in your taste to write down what you find, the way human’s aroma receptors work limit how can we tell the flavor. Most of the time it’s just strokes after strokes like the impressionist is doing in their drawings. Over time you can tell which one is even better, by observing more flavor, more complexity in aromas, and more everything. When you get denser and denser experience that ends a better hazy IPA. Some other beer style is different, you need a cleaner structure. But for hazy IPA, you just want to get your orange juice showing all different kind of citrus flavors without punishing your palate with bitterness. So on that side, it’s almost always win if you can find a hazy above 4 at Untappd. Which is not hard at all in California (or any city in the world).