Name: Six Year
Brewer: Finback Brewery (United States)
Brewers: Mixed-Style Beer (Base Style: Specialty IPA: New England IPA)
ABV: 10.1%
Review Year: 2020
The Queens-based Finback Brewery celebrates its anniversary by releasing special one-off brews. Last year, we were able to grab some of these essential goods from their taproom, and ever since we reviewed the Five Year “Triple IPA,” we had to make sure we followed this series yearly. Unfortunately, given the current circumstances, there were no big celebrations this year, but the 2020 outturn still made it out of the tanks and into the glasses of the brewery’s followers. This is it for 2020– Finback’s Six Year “Triple IPA,” a beer brewed with Citra, Mosaic, Simcoe, Meridian, Azacca, and Centennial Cryo.
Read More: Finback Brewery “Five Year” Triple IPA
STYLE GUIDELINES
This beer is being evaluated as a Mixed-Style Beer (34B) with the Specialty IPA: New England IPA (21B) as the base style in the context of the 2015 Beer Style Guidelines of the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP). The most current version of the guidelines can be found on the BJCP website.
As of this writing, the “Triple IPA” is not an official and explicit style in the BJCP; thus, these beers still lack a comprehensive set of style guidelines. For the hazy and juicy variants, these Triple IPAs could simply be bigger-than-double versions of a New England IPA or Hazy IPA with an ABV of around 10%.
TASTING NOTES
Yellow-orange color; well-retained foamy white head. The nose evoked fresh fruits: mangoes, peaches, java apples (macopa), rambutan, oranges, and lemon, with a dash of white chocolate shavings. Medium-bodied with a moderate level of carbonation. Fruit juice-like mouthfeel. The flavor profile bursts with bright fruity and citrus characters such as mangoes, lychees, pears, pineapples, oranges, lemons, and java apple. A modest level of bitterness and a light bready backbone allows for the bright fruit flavors to flourish. Very light “hop burn” and some peppery heat are noted but do not interfere with the other aspects of the beer. A low sweetness reminiscent of white chocolate is also present.
Six Year leaves the palate dry and puckering, calling back flavors from a spiked fruit cocktail and the familiar peppery heat.
THE VERDICT
Phenomenal. Finback never disappoints with their hazy beers and it feels that with Six Year, they have taken things a notch higher. Six Year has everything you could ask for in a “Triple” IPA: a gorgeous hazy yellow-orange colored beer, an aroma profile bursting with fresh fruits, a complex ripe fruit juice-like flavor palate sans any alcohol sting, and a drinkability akin to juice. All these for a beer that clocks in at 10.1% ABV.
Recommended Readings:
Flavor Fever: Seeing Through the Haze of Double and Triple Juicy IPAs (Craft Beer & Brewing, 2020)
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