Hopping Time Zones is either a genuinely clever name for a New Zealand-style IPA or the sort of pun that should come with a warning label taped to the can. Johnson City Brewing Company clearly doesn't care which. They made the beer anyway, and it's good enough that I'm inclined to forgive the toll.
It sits at 6.4%, dry hopped with Nelson Sauvin and Motueka, the two hops doing all the heavy lifting for that white-wine, tropical-fruit, faintly funky thing New Zealand IPAs do so well. Hull and Oats grain from Riverbend Malt House, just up the road in Asheville, handles the haze and the mouthfeel, so half the beer is chasing the Southern Hemisphere while the other half stays resolutely local.
Johnson City Brewing runs two locations and somehow crammed a book club, trivia night, and a full PeachFest into the same week this thing dropped. Busy operation. Doesn't show it.
Releases Wednesday, July 15th, on draft and in cans at both locations.
A well-traveled hop bill. No passport required, no pun tax refunded.