It’s the start of a new month, and we all know what that means: a brand-spanking-new Warehouse Series beer from GB. Last month we brought you Vic IPA, a stunningly fruity and hazy NEIPA, marking a movement away from our earlier, more traditional Warehouse Series beers. June’s beer continues this trend, taking influence from all across the craft beer world and stuffing it all into one drink: our Double-Dry Hopped Pale, ‘Double Reynolds’.
Double Reynolds sits at an enticingly sessionable 4.4%, unfined and hazy, brimming with flavour from the dry-hopping process.
For those unfamiliar with the term, dry-hopping refers to the addition of hops to the beer after the boil, directly into the fermentation vessel or conditioning tank. Doing this preserves the hops’ essential oils, allowing them to be extracted and retained within the beer while no extra bitterness is imparted. Dry-hopping aims to elevate the beer’s aroma and flavour, infusing the beer with fresh, intense hoppy goodness. But a single dry hop wouldn’t be enough for Double Reynolds – we’d be doing a disservice to the name if we didn’t double up our dry-hopping to get every ounce of flavour out of those incredible little plants.
Double Reynolds is exciting for another reason. Like a lot of craft breweries, we regularly find ourselves using Cascade and Citra hops, which contribute to the flavour of most of our beers – particularly those on the paler side. There’s a reason these hops are everywhere; it’s because they’re delicious. This time, however, we wanted to be a bit different; we chose not to use the hops we know and love, instead choosing to push the boat out with some different, less ubiquitous hops. In a double dry-hopped beer, that has the potential to make it a real game-changer.
The brewing team have loaded the beer with American hops. For the second month running we’re using El Dorado, the relatively new emergence onto the craft beer scene that we used for the first time only last month in our Vic IPA, a fantastic hop loaded with plenty of both alpha acids and oils. We’ve got Amarillo imparting a wealth of delicious orange citrus flavour, and we’ve got Ahtanum bringing its brilliantly unique blend of citrus and pine flavours.
All this comes together to deliver a deliciously smooth, rounded pale ale, heavy on flavour while being fairly light on bitterness. A surprisingly subtle nose gives hints of ripe fruit, that, upon tasting, crystallises into distinct juicy characters of peach and orange. The hop flavours strike the perfect balance between depth and freshness, lending the beer an easy-drinking quality.
There’s no danger sessioning this one – grab a pint at TANK, take yourself outside, and enjoy the weather alongside this fantastically summery brew. We know our customers love pales, especially those crammed with New World hops, and we’ve got faith this one is going to go down a tropical storm.