Predictably, the new house consumes the vast majority of my spare time, but, crucially, the consumption of beer does and indeed must go on.
I consider this my biére du jour because I've found myself returning to the well again and again as the days begin to stay longer, brighter and warmer.
I still don't know exactly what it is that makes a cold IPA a cold IPA and not an IPL (remember them?) but Galway Bay have put out a cracker.
I Hear You Like IPA is aptly named; it is, to me, a modern recreation of the exact type of hoppy beer that I fell madly in love with around ten or so years ago. Oh, is it juicy? Kind of, but not really. Is it citrusy? Yeah it is a bit, mainly grapefruit but that's not the main event. Is it a dank sweaty savoury sweatball that oozes lupulin and therefore must be considered good even though it basically tastes foul? No, not at all.
It's dreamy, an elegy to pine tree resin and grapefruit peel and makes me think I'm having my first ever sip of Sierra Nevada Something Or Other. Cold fermentation and lagery malts has cleaned it up, making it a straight and true hop forward expression unclouded by esters and unbothered by crystal malt clamminess; no, this is pure nostalgia without the wonky bad bits.
I love it, I want it, and I still buy it when I see it.