Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.
Sweetwater has bought a lot of goodwill inside my brain. The Georgia-based brewery was a standby when I was a broke graduate student in Nashville, typically available for $2.50 a pint at my local Flying Saucer on trivia night.
While it’s 420 Pale Ale was a little too strong from my “still-used-to-Pabst” taste buds, Sweetwater Blue helped fill the gap in my years of hating bitter hops before abruptly loving them. There are at least a few 2007-era pint glasses with the brewery’s fish logo adorned upon it someone on a shelf in my basement.
But living in Wisconsin the past 12 years means I haven’t had a Sweetwater in a while. While other southern brewers like Abita and Cigar City have made minor inroads in the drinkin’-est state in the union, the Atlanta-based beer is a virtual non-entity up here.
So when I got the chance to try a couple of new-ish — at least to me — Sweetwater beers for the sake of “research” I jumped at the chance. I drank the H.A.Z.Y. double IPA and Mosaic single hop hazy IPA (along with a few 420s and Blues) in hopes of sending me back 15 years.
It mostly panned out!
Mosaic single hop hazy IPA: A-
It pours with a nice half inch white head and smells like citrus hops. A little lemon, a little pine.
That citrus, slightly bitter, is front and center on the first sip. It is … wildly smooth. The carbonation is lush and dense. That bitterness clings to the roof of your mouth while the citrus and malt slide underneath. It’s juicy — not as fruity as a true juicy IPA, but with a much more full and bolder flavor than a regular IPA.
It’s really, very good. Dense but not overly heavy. Flavorful without leaning too hard in any one direction. This is a wonderfully balanced beer with some complex moves. There’s gonna be something you like about this brew. Fortunately for me, I like pretty much all the tastes it blends together.
H.A.Z.Y. Double IPA: B
Another beautiful pour, this one with about twice as much foam on top, dappled dense and thick. The smell has a little more citrus than the single hop hazy and some more sweetness overall.
The first sip brings up that thin sweetness — almost cotton candy-like — before the light bitterness of the hops chases it away. It’s not as crisp as its predecessor, which makes sense since it’s a double. While it’s still good, I wish this was the one that had come in the 12 ounce can and the mosaic in the 19.2-ounce not-quite-bomber.
Despite the thick head the carbonation disappears once poured. It’s a bit of a thick drinker, lacking the snap of sharp bubbles that would put it over the top. But also it clocks in at 8.5 percent ABV, so it’s not supposed to be a quick sipper. It’s fruity and strong and a well made beer. It’s just not what I was looking for, especially after that banger of a mosaic IPA.
Ah well, it’s still pretty good.
