Review: Quidi Vidi Aloha Sour India Pale Ale


Wow, it took me until 2021 for me to finally try a beer from Newfoundland & Labrador. Seriously, that long! Ever since the very early days of this blog, I've had people ask me to review St. John's Quidi Vidi Brewery.. so here you go, fiiiiiiinally! Today's sampling is Aloha Sour IPA (6.0%). 

Appearance: Cloudy and heavy orange body, no noticeable carbonation but the head is off-white/almost beige. Decent amount of lacing on the glass.

Aroma: Sour IPA is definitely a good description of this because I keep getting alternating aromas of sour and then full on IPA. The sourness is a fermented sour fruit kind of aroma, a tad vinegary, perhaps mango? The beer has a good hop presence with a floral and bitter pine presence, as well as a good amount of citrus zest (lemon, grapefruit, pineapple) popping out. 

Taste: From my initial tasting - it's a lot more toned down than I expected.. it's still a bit sour but quite a bit lighter, more reminiscent of a gose. Notes of mango, grapefruit and lemon pop up, as well as a mild grain presence, and a tad lingering sourness at the end, a bit reminiscent to lemonade. Almost has a beer cocktail kind of vibe because of the sour notes and citrus popping out, definitely appreciated on a cold as eff slightly chilly prairie winter evening.

Overall Thoughts: I didn't care too much about it at first but after a couple sips it started to get more sour and tropical with a hoppy profile popping out. It has a beer cocktail vibe to it, which makes me want to go on a hot vacation right now but it's only been colder than -15 in the daytime only like three times since October so this may be worthy of a Brent Leroy from Corner Gas vacation. I never expected to ever use a link to a Corner Gas video on this blog, ever. 

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