Name: Hazy Days
Brand: Cowbell Brewing Co.
Availability: InStock

Four hop varieties, added three separate times, at 36 IBU. Cowbell Brewing Co. built its Hazy Days around flavour rather than bite.

The Blyth brewery's juicy IPA is 6 percent ABV in 473 ml cans, and it is on LCBO shelves alongside the Absent Landlord sale running to October 10. Cowbell describes it as bursting with mango, pineapple and papaya, a beer that "skips the bitterness and goes straight to flavour paradise."

The hop bill behind that is Galaxy, Mosaic, Mandarina and El Dorado - what the brewery calls a wild amount of each. More telling is where they go in. Cowbell's records for the beer describe it as aggressively whirlpool-hopped, fermentation-hopped and dry-hopped, three additions that all arrive after the boil has done its work.

That sequencing explains the numbers. Bitterness in beer comes largely from alpha acids isomerized by a long hot boil, while the oils responsible for aroma and fruit character are volatile and burn off under the same conditions. Adding hops at the whirlpool, during fermentation and again cold extracts the second group while largely skipping the first. The result registers at 36 IBU, modest for a beer this saturated, and carries the haze and soft mouthfeel the style is known for.

The four varieties are chosen to stack rather than compete. Galaxy and El Dorado supply the tropical weight, Mosaic adds a berry and citrus edge, and Mandarina Bavaria - a German variety bred from Cascade - pushes toward tangerine. Cowbell lists the tasting notes as mango, honey, pineapple and papaya.

The brewery records the beer at 6 SRM and suggests tacos, pizza, Pad Thai and soft cheese.

Cans are available at the LCBO and through the brewery.

Editor’s Take

Thirty-six IBU. That is the number worth sitting with, because it is the number doing the work. This is a beer described as bursting with mango and pineapple and papaya, hopped at three separate stages with four varieties, and it comes out measurably less bitter than a great many amber ales. The trick of the hazy IPA is that hop flavour and hop bitterness were never actually the same thing - they come from different compounds extracted at different temperatures - and once brewers worked out how to add hops late and cold, the entire bitter tax turned optional.\n\nThe quartet here is doing something specific too. Galaxy and El Dorado are the tropical heavy artillery, all passionfruit and stone fruit. Mandarina Bavaria is the interesting one: a German variety bred from Cascade that goes hard at tangerine rather than the grapefruit register its parent is known for. Put that against Mosaic and you get the citrus sitting on top of the mango instead of underneath it, which is roughly the difference between a fruit salad and a smoothie. Cowbell suggests tacos and Pad Thai, and that is correct - a beer with no bitterness to clash with chilli heat is a genuinely useful thing to have in the fridge.

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.

Hazy Days Hits Its Hops Three Times, Skips the Bitterness

Galaxy, Mosaic, Mandarina and El Dorado, added at the whirlpool, during fermentation and again as a dry hop. Cowbell's 6 percent juicy IPA lands at 36 IBU, which is the whole point.

Source & Editorial