BREWER: Salt Beer Factory, West Yorkshire, England

STYLE: New England IPA

ABV: 5.5%

VESSEL: 440ml tin

TWITTER: @SaltBeerFactory

INSTAGRAM: saltbeerfactory 

DATE OF POST: 4th July 2021

 

JYMI SAY’S…

There is normally a lot to enjoy from the visual of a tin of Salt. The 330 tins have always looked bright and different in their design without being quirky. The info given behind the name of the brewery and the names of the beers is interesting and just nice to know. However, with this tin of Huckaback from a visual standpoint things were not all well. See this honeycomb design of Salts just doesn’t look as good in 440 form for me. Nor do I particularly like the colour. It’s very dark and housing a NEIPA that should be bright and light, I’m not sure the design team have particularly nailed this one if I’m honest. The fact the tin also explains phonetically how to pronounce Huckaback is fairly hilarious too!

Moving onto the beer itself although the initial sips are pleasant, tasty in fact, the body and longevity of this NEIPA are severely lacking. It tastes good at first but then everything just falls away. There is no punch, no bite, no personality. There is the classic tropical nose and classic sweetness in the sip which is synonymous with this style. This does help Huckaback along a little but it all comes back to the severe lack of SOMETHING once the initial sip is done. It feels like maybe the ABV should be higher, but to be fair at 5.5% it should be plenty strong enough. This is where the brewer needs to step up I’m afraid.

Pleasant, but lacking.

Jymi’s Rating: 60%

 

SAMMY SAY’S…

They say you can’t have too much of a good thing. And, for many things, that’s true. We could spend a long time listing them. Then revisiting the list. And then change it, only to revisit it once again and… well, you get the picture.

And so, the modern style IPA market, which Huckaback broadly fits into, has many a good beer in it; we definitely can’t get enough of them. But what we can have enough of, perhaps, is too many of them. You see, what begins to happen is the lesser ones on the market pale into insignificance.

And so it is with Huckaback. It’s not a terrible beer. It’s light tropical nose is pleasant enough. It’s crisp light and easy to drink.

The thing is, it’s just not doing much. It’s disappears into nothingness. It’s over before it’s begun.

Alas, while not terrible, Huckaback is by no stretch of the imagination good. It’s uncomplicated existence will be unlikely to leave a mark on those that it crosses.

Sammy’s Rating: 63%

MUSE ON BOOZE RATING: 61.5%

MOB review next weekend: SATURATED IN MOSAIC by DEYA

Sammy & Jymi – Musing on Booze since 2017