This pack itself is the perfect love poem to what is arguably the most perfect beer.
The Hopalicious pack offers a glimpse of what might have been (or what life in an alternate universe looks like) if, instead of the classic cascade hops, Hopalicious was made with something else. Maybe mosaic hops. Or Citra. Or Skyrocket hops.
You get the idea. The variety pack showcases different varieties of essentially the same beer but with a different hop each time.
Ale Asylum started this project in the beginning of 2018, rolling out a different variety every few months. Fast forward to the end of the year, and this is the culmination of their wonderful experiment — a Hopalicious variety pack featuring a mosaic, citra, Skyrocket, and the cascade hopped Hopalicious.
In honor of this pack, the drunken poems are essentially the same poem about the same beer – but in a different style of a few of my favorite writers. Have fun guessing which one is which.
Original Hopalicious AKA the Cascade Classic – 5.7%
The beer that made me fall in love with beer. It’s honestly, probably, my favorite beer. It has the perfect balance of biscuity caramel pale malts that are balanced by a piney and citrus hop flavor. 10/10.
An Ode to Hopalicious written in an informal Horatian ode style.
Oh how I love the way floral hops
cascade down upon the tongue
from first sip to last drops
The pale ale is how many wild nights had begun
Hopalicious is my perfect vision
for what I believe the mana of heaven
a liquid amber work of art
an ale to make all others feel deficient
For there is no close second
Hopalicious has won my heart.
Skyrocket – 5.7%
It carries the same rich malt background that I love about the original, that delicious and smooth flavor of biscuits, caramel, and creamy smoothness. But unlike the original, the hops are a little more fierce. It has the tropical fruit flavor of the skyrocket hop, but also a sharp bitterness and super dry finish compared to the original. Overall the bitterness is more pronounced.
‘There are no second acts when it comes to beer
but maybe that’s been disproven here.
For this beer,
I fell in love with its hops. Their summery aromas inflict
dreams of a heaven somewhere,
out there this side of paradise.
The only tragedy is that, like fireworks on the fourth
a limited edition ale, bursts forth
and fades just as fast.’
Citra – 5.7%
The citra version barely resembles the original in my opinion. It has a dominant (and delicious) citrus fruit flavor with juicy orange and grapefruit notes then flows into a floral hopped, dry finish. Behind the immense citrus/hop flavor you can get a subtle familiar background of caramel malt.
‘Once he said speaking softly reminiscing thoughtfully that there was a place he knew an older country where trout swim in the streams in the mountains and we would come to camp after a long hunt, walking miles up the barren wastelands to a more promised land and we would see the sun setting slowly spilling blood across the horizon and we were parched. So we sat and drank and our thirst was quenched. That beer reminds me of then.’
Mosaic – 5.7%
The mosaic is my favorite challenger to the original. It brings along the burst of mosaic hops, which includes dominant notes of delicious mango, pineapple, and papaya tropical flavors. And, like the original, it balances out the bitterness with a sweet malt background. It has a low bitter finish, with lots of refreshing juicy hop flavor.
‘The mosaic hops are something holy
starbursts flavor sounds jazzman
bopping the horn around
blow
blow
blowing
don’t you
know
know
knowing
this beer is all we really need?’