San Diego has spent the better part of two decades quietly deciding it is the hop capital of America, and North Park, the actual neighborhood, has become such a dense cluster of breweries that walking between them barely counts as exercise. Into that crowded, hop-obsessed field steps juicefulness, a collaboration between North Park Beer Co. and everywhere that asks a simple question: how juicy can a hazy Double IPA actually get before it stops being beer and starts being dessert.
The answer, it turns out, is very juicy indeed. This is a Triple Dry Hopped Hazy Double IPA loaded with Nelson Sauvin, Krush Cryo, and Peacharine, a hop combination that reads less like a brewing recipe and more like a fruit stand inventory. The brewery describes flavors of zippy passionfruit, fruit loops, peach, and watermelon Jolly Rancher, and at 8.5% ABV, they are not kidding around about backing that juiciness up with genuine strength.
What makes this one worth paying attention to is the phrase "juicy Double IPA" gets thrown around so often in craft beer that it has practically lost meaning, the beer equivalent of a restaurant calling everything "artisanal." North Park is making a specific claim here, that this particular beer oozes juicefulness in a way that others merely gesture at, and given the hop bill involved, that is not an unreasonable boast.
North Park Beer Co. has built its reputation partly on exactly this kind of hop-forward collaboration, and this drop arrived alongside two more team-ups with everywhere plus their flagship Hop-Fu, timed to coincide with their Crown Point Pizza Shop's second anniversary. A brewery that can release three new collaborative beers and throw a pizza party in the same week is clearly not short on either ambition or hops.
Get it while you can at their North Park or Bankers Hill taprooms, or shipped to you in California, and prepare for a beer that treats subtlety as something that happens to other, less interesting IPAs.