It must be quite a cool job coming up with the marketing for the Uiltje beers. They are producing new beers every week, and somehow still presenting very cool can art and beer names for the new creations. Here we have another hoppy beer packaged in a very fun-looking can.
Fred & Willamette is of course a play on words for one of the old-school hops used in the beer. Our ‘Stone Age IPA’ features Willamette, East Kent Goldings, Columbus and Centennial hops, supported by a malt base of Maris Otter Pale Malt and some Pilsner Malt.
The malt base is very much a feature of this beer, vying for the spotlight with those traditional hops. The bready malt provides the early inviting sweetness, joined by the hops with notes of pineapple, orange and grapefruit along with that grassy, earthy flavour. The beer finishes quite dry, with a lingering herbal bitterness.
So not really a Stone Age beer, more an English IPA. This was the style of IPA’s more common in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s – before the US IPA’s with their tropical fruit flavours and aromas took the craft beer market by storm.