Name: Repeater
Brand: Blood Brothers Brewing
Availability: InStock

Most hazy IPAs are assembled from four or five hop varieties across three continents, on the theory that more inputs make a fuller picture. Blood Brothers Brewing has gone the other way with Repeater, and the name turns out to be a fair description of the method: one hop, said three times.

Repeater is a 6.2 percent hazy IPA built on Nelson Sauvin, Nelson Bliss and fresh Nelson cold-pressed hop juice. Those are not three varieties. Nelson Bliss is the same Nelson Sauvin, run through an experimental harvest-and-processing method developed by New Zealand's Freestyle Hops. The method aims at pushing the hop's sweet tropical side further while keeping its brighter citrus character intact. The resulting lots get described in terms of mango, red grapefruit and lychee rather than the wine-like notes the variety is usually filed under. Cold-pressed hop juice is a third form again: a liquid hop product made without the drying step that dulls fresh aromatics.

So the hop bill is really one hop caught at three different moments, stacked rather than balanced. The Toronto brewery describes expressive aromas of white grape, gooseberry, passionfruit and ripe tropical fruit, layered with bright citrus and a touch of fresh peach, over a soft body and a clean, crisp finish.

That is an unusual bet in a category that normally rewards layering. Blend four hops and no single one is identifiable in the glass; use one variety in three formats and the whole beer becomes an argument about what that variety can do. Whether the argument lands is a matter for the drinker, but it is at least a legible one. That is more than most hop bills manage.

Repeater is available now in 473 mL cans from Blood Brothers Brewing in Toronto.

Editor’s Take

Somewhere in the last decade the hop bill turned into a group project. Five varieties, three countries, everyone contributing a note that nobody can pick out once it is in the glass. Repeater runs on the opposite instinct, and the part I like most is that two of its three hops are the same plant: Nelson Sauvin, then Nelson Sauvin again after somebody in New Zealand spent a couple of harvests working out how to coax more tropical fruit out of it, then Nelson a third time as fresh juice. That is less a recipe than a controlled experiment with a single subject.

The reward for narrowness is legibility. Nelson has a dry white-wine streak that tends to vanish the moment a loud citrus hop parks next to it, and here nothing is parked next to it. Which suggests a plan: put this beside something with salt and fat and a bit of tang - a hard goat cheese, or oysters if the day is going that well - and let the beer take the job a glass of white wine would normally be handed. That is not a claim about how it tastes, only about where I would point it.

Source & Editorial

JollyPint independently prepares release articles using information published by breweries through newsletters, websites, and other official public communications. Brewery-supplied descriptions and tasting notes are reported as provided, while editorial context is added by JollyPint.

Repeater Says Nelson Sauvin Three Times and Nothing Else

Repeater is one hop presented three ways - Nelson Sauvin as pellets, as an experimentally processed Bliss lot, and as fresh cold-pressed juice. Blood Brothers built a 6.2 percent hazy that only wants to say one thing.

Source & Editorial