Toppling Goliath X Hops Pale Ale (Blue Label)

The Toppling Goliath Brewing Company is in Decorah, Iowa. They make not only the best beer in Iowa, but some of the best in the entire nation. This is one of the second two releases in their new X Hop series. They will each have a unique color to their label, and each color represents a new experimental hop. They encourage people who try the X Hops beers to provide their input back to the brewery. They will then try to encourage hop growers to grow more of these new hops so as to have more regular production of some of these varieties.  (See Red here and Green here and Yellow here and Orange here and Rainbow here)

The beer pours the color of a moist dried apricot, and a bit hazy. There is a short half-inch of off-white foam, this beer wasn’t real eager to get a big head on it. The aroma is passion fruit, mingling and merging into spruce-like pine. Vinous notes of sauvignon blanc and pinot grigio spin off of it. The taste makes the same progressions as the aromas, with the passion fruit, pine and white wine. When the pine and white wine merge, it is almost like the beer version of a very light Greek retsina. There is a bit of earthy, musky hop in the background, the only part of this reminiscent of the always loved pseudoSue. There is enough malt to hold up all of this hoppy goodness, but it is only the frame, it stays covered and lets the hops do their magic. It is lightly carbonated, relatively, but still gives a tingle. The finish is lightly to moderately bitter, especially when taking into account how much hop flavor is happening.