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Siren White IPA

Siren White IPA.

We weren’t sure what to expect from a beer with this name, but extreme pallor was, we thought, a given.

After a firm zip and hiss, it actually emerged from the bottle somewhere near amber, haze-free, with an immoveable, whipped-cream head.

Puzzled, we read the label again: it’s their ‘expression of a wit bier’ with IPA hopping, they say, but we think it’s actually an IPA with wit bier spices and citrus. That fine distinction made sense to us, anyway.

The (new concept klaxon!) far aroma — the one we could smell from a foot away — was of the candied pineapple, Del Monte tinned peaches variety, rather than at the weedy, piney end of the spectrum.

Getting closer — the near aroma — there was something mysterious to ponder over, barely perceptible but distinctly weird. Our first thought was swimming pool chlorine, then antiseptic, then… yes, that was it — the white rind of a  soft French cheese! So, ammonia, perhaps? That somehow fit into the Continental rustic farmhouse theme, and we found ourselves quite at ease with its occasional intrusion.

The beer tasted overwhelmingly orangey, in a sticky, Jaffa Cake fashion, but also somewhat salty, almost seaweedy, and had the texture of a vanilla mousse as it foamed on the tongue.

It tasted much bigger than its 4.5% ABV, though not at all ‘boozy’, with just enough complexity to keep the attention. It almost tasted wrong, but not quite, which is what we’d call a sweet spot. It was, in other words, tasty.

We’ve sometimes used the term ‘home brew’ as a pejorative when describing commercial beers, but we’re rethinking that: if a friend had brewed this, we’d congratulate them heartily.

Disclosure: we got this beer in a sample case sent to us by Eebria.

3 replies on “Siren White IPA”

Fetch the compasses! My flavour wheel needs concentric aroma circles!

That does look unusual. Any white IPA I’ve had has looked identical to witbier, with the same texture, but very different hopping. The spicing is sometimes completely absent.

Interesting! Blackjack’s white IPA I liked – I thought it worked as a beer – but if they’d called it “cream soda IPA” it would have been just as good a description. This sounds like a more challenging proposition. Siren are definitely coming up on the outside.

For whatever reason, White IPAs always taste like scented candle wax to me. How I know what scented candle wax tastes like is another mystery.

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