Guggman Haus names its beers like trailhead markers. Hazy Days Route. IPA Expedition. Into the Wild Sour. Foggy Trails, new in cans this week at both Indianapolis taprooms, keeps to the map and takes the strength up to 9.1 percent.

It is a double dry-hopped double hazy IPA built on El Dorado, Citra and Mosaic. Two of those need no introduction in the style. Citra and Mosaic have been the default hazy pairing for the better part of a decade, and most Midwestern taprooms will have something on tap right now using both.

El Dorado is the one doing the distinguishing work. It is an American variety with a marked stone fruit character, closer to canned peach and candied melon than to the grapefruit and pine of older US hops. When a brewery describes a hazy IPA as tasting of peach, El Dorado is very often the reason.

That matches how Guggman Haus is describing this one. According to the brewery, Foggy Trails offers bright notes of dank peach and pineapple, with a big juicy body that finishes smooth and creamy on tropical fruit. The dank end of that is Mosaic's territory. The peach is where El Dorado lives.

The 9.1 percent is doing structural work as much as anything. A double dry-hop loads a lot of hop matter into the tank, and a thin beer underneath it can finish harsh and vegetal. A bigger malt bill and more alcohol give the hops something to sit in, which is the usual reason a hazy IPA of this intensity is built at this strength rather than at six percent.

The label follows the name. A cabin sits among pines below a range of dark peaks, with a small tent pitched at the water's edge and mist over the whole scene.

Foggy Trails is available now in cans at the Gent Avenue brewery and the 46th Street taproom.

Editor’s Take

El Dorado is a wonderful thing to name a hop after. The original was a city of gold that a great many people went looking for and nobody ever found, which is a fairly bold reference point for an agricultural product from Yakima. The hop itself turns out to taste of peach and candied stone fruit, which is not gold exactly, but is a considerably better outcome than what happened to most of the people who went looking for the actual place.

What I like is how neatly it lands in this particular lineup. Guggman Haus names beers like a parks department. Routes, expeditions, wilderness, trails, and now fog rolling over the lot. Drop a legendary lost city into that and the whole menu starts to read like the index of an atlas nobody has checked in a while. Then you notice it is 9.1 percent, which settles the question of whether this is a beer for the hike or a beer for afterwards. It is for afterwards. Boots off.

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.

Foggy Trails Adds El Dorado to the Standard Citra-Mosaic Pair

Guggman Haus has a 9.1 percent double hazy in cans this week. Citra and Mosaic do the familiar work, and El Dorado is the one carrying the peach the brewery keeps pointing at.

Source & Editorial