Name: Buko-Pandan
Brewer: HideOut Craft Brewery (Philippines)
Style: Alternative Sugar Beer (Base Style: Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer)
ABV: 7%
Review Year: 2021
From the creator of the Ube Milkshake IPA and I Got U-Beh Ube Milk Stout comes a brand new Filipino delicacy-inspired beer. This is the Buko-Pandan Milkshake IPA from HideOut Craft Brewery (Quezon City)– a beer that features coconut (buko), pandan leaves, and milk sugar.
STYLE GUIDELINES
This beer is being evaluated as an Alternative Sugar Beer (31B) with the Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer (30A) as the base style in the context of the 2015 Beer Style Guidelines of the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP).
Recommended Readings:
Specialty IPA Clarifications and Q&A (BJCP, 2017)
WTF is a Milkshake IPA? (Vinepair, 2018)
TASTING NOTES
Slightly hazy green with a greenish-white head. The nose is quite aromatic and really captured the essence of buko pandan (salad): coconut, pandan, and cream. These held up well even as the beer settled. Medium-bodied; moderately carbonated. Flavor: medium-low sweetness resembling coconut syrup and cream; supportive bright malty character; and moderately-low hop bitterness (piney and resiny). Noted bitterness lingered into the aftertaste; dry.
THE VERDICT
HideOut’s Buko-Pandan Milkshake IPA is another well-executed novelty that matched expectations with reality. The aroma profile is spot on, while sweetness already felt sufficient. Moreover, the malt and bitterness were notable enough to remind us that this was still beer and not carbonated buko salad.
This was another challenging beer to review due to the lack of defined benchmarks or parameters. But if there’s one thing this beer could still improve on, it would be to have a slightly softer and fuller mouthfeel.
Related Reviews:
HideOut Craft Brewery “I Got U-Beh” Ube Milk Stout
HideOut Craft Brewery “Ube Milkshake IPA 2.0”
