Review: Tree House Brewing's Julius


I've been really lucky lately being able to try beers I would usually never get to try in my life unless if I travelled a few thousand KM. Thanks Corey! Tonight I'm checking out Julius by Tree House out of Monson, Massachusetts. Juicy IPAs are all the rage and then some right now, every brewery's making them and Tree House is one of the breweries that turned the style from something experimental to one of the more sought after beer styles by all beer geeks.

Appearance: When I first pour Julius into the glass, it pours a thick, creamy orange creamsicle beverage in a glass.. so to say that it's a juicy IPA would be an understatement here! The beer settles and it starts to resemble heavy orange juice but with a hint of a copper hue to it. There's a moderate amount of white creamy head on top but it mostly ends up sticking to the glassware.

Aroma: Tropical! It's giving off notes of orange juice, mango, a hint of pine, pineapple, a mild note of NE yeastiness, and even more tropical sweetness making its way up to my nostrils at the very end. It has an almost beer mimosa vibe to it as it's just that juicy!

Taste: This beer has the flavours I'm seeing almost all breweries attempting now days - a heavily tropical fruit forward IPA that is balanced with the hops rather than a hop first sort of mentality. It's incredibly sweet, creamy on the palate, has a great deal of hoppy bitterness that quickly attacks the tongue with pine notes and then retreats. There's fruity notes of pineapple, orange and mango making me think that an IPA fruit smoothie would do really well.. but I don't really want to try it because what if it's a disaster? Maybe one day I'll give that a try.

Overall Thoughts: The theme of this beer: juicy! It wasn't until this past autumn when I started hearing all about these juicy IPAs and finally got to try some.. even if they weren't from New England. Juicy IPAs seem to be a trend that's moving your typical bitter, hoppy as hell, burns your throat, abrasive IPA into this sort of beverage that's almost like a beer drinker's version of a fruit cooler as it's sweet, easy to drink and even a party in your mouth. Julius is sweet, creamy, still retains a great deal of bitterness to satisfy the die hard hop heads and appeals to people who didn't drink IPAs until New England IPAs became a huge trend. To me, this is reminiscent to an IPA mimosa in a can to an extent, so no wonder why the style is called juicy!

http://treehousebrew.com/julius/

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