This is a beer we almost didn’t get. It was a beer De Molen brewed a year ago, and it was well received (as most of their beers are!) They offered it for pre-order but given the variable nature of our containers, and the style of the beer, it wasn’t one we could lock in with any certainty. So we thought it was a beer we’d not get to try.
As we were finalising our container, De Molen offered us a handful of cartons, even though we hadn’t pre-ordered any and the whole production was pre-assigned. Not enough for us to offer wholesale to our business customers, but just enough to include in our beer club.
The beer is a single hop (Mosaic) NEIPA, with the name literally translating as ‘head & butt’; though a more accurate meaning would be ‘neck & crop’.
There is a good dose of tropical fruit in the aroma, that follows through as fruit sweetness in the taste. A pretty full bodied biscuity malt backbone adds a bit of weight to the body but there is enough hop bitterness to break up the sweetness. Right on the finish there is a slight tartness akin to grapefruit that offers an interesting lingering aftertaste.