Beer: Can-O-Bliss Double IPA
Brewery: Oskar Blues Brewery (Longmont, CO)
Style: IPA – Imperial/ Double
8.2% ABV / N/A IBU

Can-O-Bliss Double IPA is the fourth in Oskar Blues Brewery’s Can-O-Bliss IPA series and the most straightforward in its presentation: a hazy DIPA with citra hops only. Can-O-Bliss promises “double the haze and double then hops.” The hops part is true, as this is a moderately hopped IPA with a tropical aroma that’s a dead give away for the Citra variety of hops. As for the haze, it’s actually less hazy than your average New England IPA, but it pours with a rich yellow color that is occluded, but otherwise free of unappealing sediment.

For all of the consideration given to its presentation, Can-O-Bliss Double IPA is depressingly one-note in its flavor profile. That one note is a greatest hit in and of itself, like a Ramones chord or AC/DC riff, but if you don’t like the tangerine-y/pineapple-y bouquet and intense bitterness of the Citra hops, this beer is not for you because that’s really all it is. Oskar Blues did a bit better balancing out the Citra with a mix of five other hops in last year’s Can-O-Bliss Tropical IPA. Same goes for the blend of five non-traditional hops in the Can-O-Bliss Hazy IPA.

Can-O-Bliss Double IPA smells and tastes pleasant; especially as it warms to room temperature, when you start getting slightly more nuance with the fruitiness of the Citra hops – although it is never as pronounced in taste as it is on the nose. Hopefully, 2020 brings an end to single-hopped Citra, Simcoe and Mosaic beers, but Oskar Blues might be on to something with this mid-coast IPA that marries the hoppy dankness of a West Coast IPA with the haziness and extreme drinkability of a New England IPA.

For more info, check out Oskar Blues Brewery here.