Beer: Mister Potato Dead
Brewery: Abomination Brewing Company (New Haven, CT)
Style: IPA – Imperial/Double
7.9% ABV / 0 IBU

In the case of Mister Potato Dead, you can judge a book by its cover, ‘cuz the can art—which depicts the zombified remains of a not-yet-gender neutral Mr. Potato Head—totally rules. This is more or less true for all of Abomination Brewing Company’s beers, with labels depicting zombies, skeletons, aliens, and Lovecraftian monsters, all with a playfully macabre twist that’s perfect for an all-year ’round Halloween celebration. Abomination is clearly having fun with this part.

This new-ish New Haven operation has also nailed it with their “potato IPA,” a double dry-hopped DIPA with Mosaic, Citra, and Idaho 7 hops. Mister Potato Dead is somewhere on the spectrum between New England IPA and West Coast IPA, although probably a lot closer to the latter – it pours a very opaque and hazy yellow and has a creamy mouthfeel. There is some of the stanky-dankyness that you experience with West Coast IPAs, but Mister Potato Dead is not a hop-bomb.

For a double dry-hopped DIPA with a dominant hop varietal like Citra, it’s actually a pretty balanced brew, Part of this is likely due to the use of Mosaic and Idaho 7 hops; both have more of a “tropical” bouquet, with peach and tangerine notes balancing out the citrus intensity of the Citra. All in all, Mister Potato Dead is a pretty mellow beer, and definitely easy-drinking relative to its style. And nearly 8% ABV, it packs too much of a wallop to be truly crushable, but it’s wonderful to drink an aggressively-hopped DIPA that has way more going for it than just bitterness.

For more info, check out Abomination here.