
Celestial Floods (or "Fioods", as the badge has it) is a double IPA of 7.9% ABV. Bullhouse of Belfast collaborated, and the hops are Galaxy, Riwaka and Mosaic. "Hazy" doesn't quite cover the proposition: it's downright beige in the glass, though smells attractive. I get pineapple, guava and something tropical but greener; avocado, perhaps. This is where I would like to be saying it tastes as clean as the aroma but it really doesn't. A hard, yeasty grit suffuses the flavour in a most unpleasant and unwelcome way. Chalk and boiled vegetables hit first: dry and earthy with a strong and rough bitterness. Some softer peach and banana flashes briefly before the sharp dregs take over once more, seeing us out into a mercifully short finish. Maybe I got the tail end of the keg but it can be hard to tell what the brewer intended when it comes to superhopped murk. Regardless, it's a poor example of this kind of double IPA, gathering together all the features I dislike and then releasing them simultaneously. Pandora's box without the hope.

Ugh. This all sounds like I'm the ancient geezer who likes olden-days European beer but isn't hip to what the kids in America are into. Is Baltic porter always better than hazy IPA? No it isn't. Mostly it is though.