Strawberry and guava jam are not the notes a West Coast IPA usually advertises. Wayfinder Beer's pub list describes Utopia as a West Coast IPA with notes of strawberry, guava jam, jasmine and pink grapefruit. It is out now at 6.8% ABV.
Only the last of those is standard issue. The style was built on pine, resin and grapefruit pith, with bitterness that arrives early and stays. For most of its life it was the beer you reached for when you wanted a reminder that hops are a plant with sharp edges. Strawberry and jasmine point somewhere considerably gentler. Those descriptors belong to the vocabulary that has grown up around modern aroma-driven hops, and they usually turn up attached to hazy beers rather than clear ones.
That is the part worth thinking about. A soft, floral, pink-fruit hop profile normally arrives wrapped in a soft body - the haze, the oats, the pillowy texture built to carry it. Put the same aromatics over a clean, dry, transparent beer and they lose their cushion. The fruit has to hold up on aroma alone while the bitterness runs underneath it rather than around it. That is a harder balance to strike and a more interesting one to taste for.
Wayfinder lists Utopia alongside six other beers as out now, an unusually crowded drop even by the standards of a brewery that keeps a long list. It is pouring at the Portland pub in half-liter servings.
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.