Review 165: New Holland Michigan Hatter

Review 165

6/9/13

New Holland Michigan Hatter: ?% abv

Background: Well, we’ve been doing great on not having information for our reviews. This would fall into that realm, because we don’t have a clue what the abv on this beer is. Now, our friendly neighbors at New Holland are very much a hit or miss brewery, producing some really kickass beers. On the other end of the spectrum, it would be safe to say they have made some pretty disappointing beers as well. We would like to word it differently, but we don’t sugarcoat any of this. So imagine where that puts this beer…The Michigan Hatter, sits in the Hatter range as an IPA which contains exclusively Michigan Cascade hops. Sounds like a novel idea from a drinker’s perspective, right? Let’s find out.

Nose: The nose starts off with a sense of sweetness, complemented by an obvious hoppiness. There are fruity notes of baked plantain, pears and cantaloupe. There is a note of vanilla, some honeysuckle floral notes and some pine-like notes, probably derived from the hops. There is an acidic note of lemon that comes through, rather sweet and not terribly tart. After letting the beer open up, there is a note of wheat that comes through in the undertones of the aromas.

Arrival: The arrival to this beer is pretty eventless, so far as we can tell. It can almost be depicted as watery, which a light hops influence. It has a sort of bitter, quinine soda-water type flavor to it.

Body: There is a relatively short body, with suggestions of wheat, hops, pine and pear. It still has an extremely light mouth-feel with hardly much flavor.

Finish: The finish is rather short, which sums up the experience of the entire beer. The finish is powerfully grainy with yeast and wheat taking over. There is still some pine and hoppiness coming through.

Final Comments:  So, halfway through this review, we kind of gave up on any sort of thorough depiction of this thing. The reason being is we didn’t at all like this. The complexity, after the nose, was lost upon us and replaced with sheer blandness, and even so much as poor flavor. This is not an expensive beer, which is good considering how much we didn’t drink of it. The best description we could produce for this beer is hops-flavored soda water. It sits right above some of those well-beloved lager friends our macrobreweries are literally spewing out, minus the maltiness that remains present in a lager. Nothing good to say about this one. Sorry.

Why you’d buy it:.You wouldn’t.

Why you wouldn’t:  Everything.

Score: 5.0/10