American Beer Review LIVE!

ABR LIVE! Review #23 - Fieldworks Brewing Emperor Citra DDH IPA

• Alec, Brian, and Chad • Season 3

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On this ABR LIVE! Review, we are in the presence of royalty. Having coronated King Citra, we are more than pleased to announce his successor - Emperor Citra DDH IPA from Fieldwork Brewing Co. In addition to today's review, Brian fills us in on the field test of a new IPA theory he's cooking up.

What's In Our Glasses Today

Fieldwork Brewing Co.

Emperor Citra DDH IPA
- 16oz Can, 4-Pack, Via Tavour
- 8.7% ABV

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Chad:

Yeah, there's another one in the fridge, if you're really, if you're really really. Johnson, I do not need a whole another one, Although I think you need this. I got. I got some athletics, a couple of fresh hops I didn't see this guy. Second site oh I, I got a piglet Grisette. Still, here's one of these IPAs Outside. What we're bringing out this is this is.

Alec:

Emperor Citra, so it is an IPA. Okay, then I got a story.

Chad:

Yeah, this is the fall of King Citra from Killwerps. This is now the double dry hopped version of the original Citra, I believe, but I can't remember if the King Citra was a hazy.

Alec:

Do you have an IPA story? Because I got a funny story as well, but you, if you got an IPA story, well, I have a new life development with IPAs.

Brian:

Welcome to another episode of the American Beer.

Chad:

Review Podcast. Good times for good friends requires good beer. Lucky for us, we know how to pick all three.

Alec:

We're a group of friends who grew up in the Pacific Northwest, giving us a jump start on our craft beer journey.

Brian:

Join us today. While, brian, I pride myself on not getting to know other people, so do not put that on me, Alec.

Alec:

So the bananas up until like the 60s weren't entirely different species of banana.

Chad:

And Chad and hit me like a back in bar.

Brian:

Review some beer, talk about beer topics and whatever else comes up. We invite you to pour yourself a drink. Hang out with us, okay. I mean, you guys know I'm the beer snob of the group and if we're going to, I mean I'm you guys aren't quite to the captain's status of only drinking light macros, correct, but if we go to someplace you might get an IPA and then you're switching to Coors or whatever it's a good litmus test.

Alec:

Right, I had like four or five different craft beers at the Travis Scott concert, which is hilarious.

Brian:

So many questions there, but to me I would drink them all night. Right, we talked about that one day. I came in here and I'd had like five different fresh hops the night before.

Alec:

What? Oh, okay, keep going, because I know why it changed. Do you know why it changed? Yes, what. You have multiple children now and you're not allowed to sleep in anymore.

Brian:

No well, I guess that's sort of it. When I went to we went to Corvallis for the Oregon State game, went to Block 15 Brewing, by the way. We had a few beers. We went out like around town, then went back to the house the week deal. Next day I wake up and I'm like I should not feel as bad as I do for the amount of beers that I had. You drink the high octane and so I said here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to try this. I've had this bro science theory for a while that it's the IPAs that are causing my hangovers to be worse IPAs or IBUs.

Alec:

IPAs Okay.

Brian:

And they're the same thing which are somewhat related.

Chad:

And so it's the alpha acids fault. So the day of yes.

Brian:

So the day of the game I had a no IPA day, okay, and probably had more beers that day than the night before. Woke up feeling much better than the day before and since then I have not had, I think, more than one IPA a day, if at all, and hangovers have been reduced, severity of hangovers have been reduced, and I'm disappointed Right, I'm very disappointed, but I think that's growing up and getting older. Just speaking of that, what are we drinking today?

Alec:

I think it's just getting older. Is your more cognizant of it? When you're younger, you go yeah, I'm going to sleep the day away. Nobody cares, Maybe my girlfriend will be mad at me or whatever. When you have to actively wake up and take care of human beings and you can't just spend an extra 20 minutes in bed and in fact you're waking up two hours before you intended to wake up and you just feel it significantly more, it's probably better.

Brian:

But going back to our last one, I'm drinking Irish death. Still I'm drinking, not like I switched to only bush light or something, but yeah, I'm feeling a lot better.

Chad:

Well, speaking of the IPAs, I forgot to bring it up last episode because that was the death cast. We were talking about brutal things and I had the gal on TikTok I Hate IPAs In the notes and I totally forgot to talk about it, because that's pretty metal. I forgot, I didn't read about this Drinking IPAs that you absolutely hate, and I downloaded TikTok again and I probably watched an hour's worth of her reviews. And she threw up multiple times. I was like that is pretty Threw up, that's metal.

Chad:

Yeah just working it into the sink. But it was like she's done it long enough. She's like, oh yeah, I'm going to puke on this one, but see like but see going back to the IPAs. I think they're because that bitterness like when we were cave people, if something was bitter, don't eat it, that's bad, yeah. And now we're just force feeding ourselves pint after pint of super hoppy, like putting all those so there's probably something Alternating with coffee, that bitterness there probably is something in there like your body's going.

Chad:

What the fuck are you doing, eating all?

Brian:

of this, although I need to punish you. I think it's the hazees that are actually sometimes worse, even though you don't get that general. No, you don't get the bitter flavor, but, like we've talked about before, just because you're not getting the bitter flavor.

Chad:

They got sugar in them.

Brian:

Well, and you're still. They're still putting a lot of hops in there. There's calories. They're still putting bittering hops.

Alec:

Yeah, so, and that's where we get to today. So this is Fieldwork's brewing. We have their King Citra.

Chad:

This is there we coordinated the King, yep, the King is dead. Long live Emperor Citra.

Alec:

Emperor Citra, a DDH double IPA. I'm going to leave Brian to figure out what a DDH double IPA is.

Brian:

Double dry hot.

Alec:

Okay.

Chad:

There we go.

Alec:

Citra, not just Citra 8.7 ABV With Citra, citra incognito and Citra cryo, so blend of different Citra hops. I don't know what the difference is between them.

Brian:

Cryo is like a frozen version, but like can last, so that you don't you don't need to do it as fresh. It also holds on to some of the I want to say it's like lupulins or something that like will come out a little more in that, even though it's the same, being like Citra, it's still going to be a slightly different flavor profile based on cryo, compared to almost like more punchy Because they were frozen and thawed back out.

Alec:

We've had the incognito, the Citra incognito Probably in King Citra, or it could be, but I don't remember what that was. So King Citra has reigned over our kingdom of double IPAs longer than King William IV reigned over the United Kingdom, which is no small task considering the maniacal frequency we have rotated our hoppy beers over the years. And the only way we could seek to improve and not replace, was to immortalize King Citra in a double dry hop form and inject it with a healthy dose of Citra, incognito and cryo to concentrate all of what this Octavian hop can do 16 ounces at a time, splashing up intense notes of orange, candy wedges, fresh mango juice, passion fruit jam, papaya lemon zest and hints of peach puree. What is an Octavian hop? I've looked at that, I tried to do the research on that and could not find it out.

Brian:

I've never heard of that one.

Alec:

Try doing the research. I don't know what classifies an Octavian hop. Octavian hop Yep, just like an octogenarian, but it's Octavian hop. I don't know, maybe it's making up words.

Chad:

This Octavian hop. It sounds cool.

Brian:

So there is a. This is on PolishHopscom, Octavia, but this one is spelled O-K-T-A-W-I-A. But since it's on a Polish website, it does make some sense and it shows it as a hybrid of Brewer's Gold and Northern.

Alec:

Brewer, so it's Citra. Okay, one of those.

Brian:

Yeah so, but I don't new wave hops. I mean it's got a bunch of information about it.

Chad:

Well, I'll tell you what I'm getting all that juice that they were talking about. Is this a juicy IPA, brian?

Brian:

I haven't tried it yet. I mean, it's definitely hazy. It's definitely hazy.

Chad:

But hazy by design or just hazy because of all of the dry hops, yeah probably some of that.

Brian:

Well, but that hops shouldn't, because you can get a crystal clear double dry hop, so that shouldn't change the.

Alec:

And I don't remember what the King Citra looked like.

Chad:

Kind of like this a little more orange.

Alec:

I think it wasn't clear, yeah.

Chad:

I had just looked up. This is kind of a light straw, but all the hazyness is kind of lightening up Someone else's picture of it, but like yeah of King Citra.

Brian:

King Citra was a little more orange, more lighter.

Alec:

Yeah, a little bit lighter color King William, because they referenced.

Brian:

Okay, so I was like what was he a king for like three days, or like what's the?

Alec:

How long? Just under seven years.

Brian:

Oh, that's actually more than I expected, okay 1830?

Alec:

June 26th 1830 through June 20th 1837.

Brian:

What actual, useful information did you have to squeeze out of your brain to be able to remember that For a break? One of these days, something's gonna happen to me, like God. Why do I not know this? You're gonna be like well, but I do remember the King William rule from.

Chad:

And someday he's gonna be watching Jeopardy in a group of people and just totally Like it's gonna be a final Jeopardy question. Oh, that is.

Alec:

Knock it out of the park. My dad's got a shirt. It says like I'm Papa, I fix things and I know things.

Brian:

This smells almost like I opened a bag of Citra hops Like right before we're brewing it. Like you open those pellets and how we pass it around before we dump it in yeah take a huff Like this smells like that pack of hops.

Chad:

And not very astringent. On the taste, no, very sweet, very smooth, almost, I dare say, buttery.

Alec:

Yeah, mouthfeel, if you weren't giving us a little bit of a reprieve in the next episode, I would say these are planning on harvesting our kidneys Because of the booziness that he's just 8.7.

Chad:

We're gonna start off with the logger next time, don't worry, but there is an IPA after that.

Brian:

For a double IPA, 8.7 is kind of par for the course. No, no, no. I know, and, like you know, this beer epitomizes why I am pissed off about my apparent body's choice to react to IPAs.

Alec:

Oh, because this you could drink oh it's what I want to have.

Brian:

It's what I.

Alec:

Give me this at 6.

Brian:

It doesn't matter Having one of these at even 8.7. It's what.

Alec:

Brian craves.

Brian:

But then I'm gonna go. I can't then switch to a West Coast at 6.2 and then have a regular IPA at 5.8 and then be like okay, well, I guess I'll switch to light beers. Now it's like no man, it's too late, it's too late.

Alec:

You've already done it to yourself. Damage is done.

Brian:

Like, but it smells delightful Like. This is one I don't know if I've talked about it on here. I have a bad habit, so my wife can't have my wife's gluten free, so we can't have going to split beers anymore, which is a big bummer and kind of like.

Alec:

Oh, you get the whole beer for yourself. I just have to drink it all by myself.

Brian:

But it makes it so that when I'm like, hey, let's go to a brewery no, it's no longer an us thing, it's a me thing where she just sits there and hopes that maybe they have something that she can have. But we used to split stuff Like this would be one that she would absolutely have enjoyed, and so now she just smells my beers, so I'll open a beer and she just smells them and is like it's fun. She still plays the game of like ooh, is that a Belgian? Oh, is that a whatever? But this is one she would smell and be like okay, I would have really liked that. Yeah, the promise. I started doing that at our house, like sitting down for dinner and doing it.

Alec:

So now you're announcing every time you open a beer. That's a stupid move.

Brian:

Do you know? Well, only the good ones. Do you know who now has taken to smelling my beer? My son your child. Yeah, so now, anytime I have a new beer he wants to smell it. But he tells people he tried my beer.

Alec:

So he does not, for the record, never drank it, but he does smell them this only came out like Month or come, came up like a month or so ago. Last new years we get together for whatever dudes giving which we got to talk about. Yeah, okay.

Brian:

In light of events that we discussed in our last episode.

Alec:

Okay, we'll take that off air. Maybe we had, yeah, my son taste the beer because we were drinking Whatever. No, oh, oh yeah we're drinking an a beer and it was like, hey, do you want to sip of this beer? Yeah, and he's like, oh, this is the worst thing ever. It was like, seriously, nine months later, before my wife was like, well, he's had a beer like that. That was a beer flavored like drink, like beer flavored water like it's 0.05.

Brian:

Yeah, percent.

Alec:

Yeah, oh, he's had beer like she legit she legitimately thought I gave my son you're sneaking him a bud heavier, like the 13 year old son a glass of beer. He did not have a glass yet a sip, but yeah, of any of an, a beer, and realized it was gross and he didn't want anything to do with it.

Brian:

Okay, you could deck hand on the road a few more years perfect, perfect Space like Same thing out good to me when I turned 21.

Alec:

If I had known I had access to better beer. Yeah we could have come up with something, but we weren't even into beer.

Chad:

I don't even know what you could have found back then.

Alec:

Oh, I mean I gotcha, oh yeah whatever it, just it's what we had in the fridge. Did live in Bellingham.

Brian:

So it's not like we couldn't have. We went out to Breweries. No, we did not. We didn't go to breweries. Yeah, we didn't know that.

Chad:

Breweries, but breweries really don't have a for breweries. Breweries used to be super bougie. Well, it just wasn't like, because there's only like one or two of them in the entire state that you could actually go.

Alec:

Oh no, no no, no, no, by that time I'm Around others a lot. It was just the back in my day why we were going more for the experience. Yeah, on where the College kids we were at the time.

Brian:

Yes, yeah, we're going to the college kids and the party and the experience and we were going out and trying to get them to make a Flaming Dr Pepper. Yeah and they wouldn't light it on fire. Liability rude.

Alec:

So fieldwork brewing with out of Berkeley. Out of Berkeley, we talked about, obviously, the King Citra. Yeah, kind of cool deal and they got a lot of locations.

Brian:

Yeah, we talked about that last time that it was like kind of shocking and surprising and how many they have. Yeah, two for two, I think on knocking out of the park we talked a little bit about this. This is it's a, like I said, the aroma is very, very much hop-forward but smelling like Citra hops. So even if you're not into the hoppy aspect of it, it's still gonna produce a really like positive Citrusy yep like smell to it. You were talking about like guava and papaya and some other stuff from their website. Yes, I don't know, gotta get that. I don't think I'm as good at getting all of those notes.

Chad:

I got like you get them all at the end.

Brian:

Is this thick fruity goodness and not thick like a smoothie we've talked about before. Yeah, yes, like this to me is and they don't call it this, I going back to your comment from earlier this to me is a new England. Yeah, yeah, yeah this is hazy, this is thick.

Chad:

This is the hazy.

Brian:

This is style that I like yes, not like oh hey, we just didn't filter it, or the ones that call them we just threw.

Chad:

We just threw a bunch of weed in it to make it.

Brian:

Yes, the problem I have and it's just me, so don't worry about it fieldwork is If I buy this one double dry hop IPA okay. I'm probably gonna think it's clear.

Brian:

Yes, oh, yeah and I've had this a few times where you Buy a beer and it there's nothing on there that is telling me Because there are some people who are gonna pour this, see it thick and like that, and just be like I Don't, I, that's not what I want, that's not what I'm looking for. But you could still get a double dry hop, double Indian IPA somewhere else and it's gonna be clear, it's gonna be more like West Coastie or they have to things, but there's nothing on here that's gonna let me know that it's that style.

Alec:

So we Review beers. We do, yeah, so we pour them into glasses.

Brian:

I thought it was just an excuse to drink beer. Don't tell my wife.

Alec:

Because she doesn't listen, so it doesn't matter exactly what it is. If you bought this in a can which we did and you're gonna drink it out of the can, you probably shouldn't. I don't anymore, but yeah, Closing your eyes does it taste like a hazy aura? Yeah, I'm gonna say yes.

Brian:

Because it is not, and I think so too, there's a little bit more cloudier mouth feel. It's a thicker feel, it's yeah. There's not the crisp yeah, or bitter punch of that style of IPA.

Alec:

I would peg this as if this was in our blind beer test. I would have pegged this as a hazy or a juicy. Yes, if you're pouring this and trying Maybe not a juicy, but hazy.

Brian:

If it was pouring for that challenge we had and trying to figure it out, we both probably would put this as a hazy. I'm calling this a New England hazy IPA.

Chad:

And going to Untapped. Oh yeah, it is listed as Imperial IPA slash Double New England slash hazy on Untapped.

Brian:

You're great so, and so is King Citra.

Chad:

Okay, yes, and I think I can't remember what they had a list on Tavor, but I think it was, unless it was a hazy as well.

Brian:

Yeah Well, not hazy, but New England. So We'll see.

Chad:

I'm gonna find the pull the can out of storage. I have to do the Instagram post Pull out all the. You still got a King Citra. I still have the original King Citra can. He's got his crown. I think I'm gonna. Okay, he's gonna be stabbed in the back by his own sword Because you have an Instagram post for it.

Alec:

I will not say break it out and let's do a side by side comparison, oh yeah. Yeah, but oh no.

Brian:

I didn't Because you're not wanting to drink another 8.7. I don't want to do that anymore.

Chad:

Oh no, I don't have a living can of. Oh, okay.

Alec:

I have the empty All of us does.

Brian:

There's no way. You planned for this.

Chad:

I had a thought in the back of my head that maybe they'd have a follow up to King Citra, so I kept it.

Brian:

This is why I stopped doing the social media Right, because, number one, it stressed me out terribly.

Chad:

Number two, he's just better at it. Number three I have multiple rooms in my house where I can just throw shit to store it. I'm just gonna tell you Without the threat of small children trying to maim themselves with it.

Brian:

Half of the stuff that was really good that I posted, you didn't do? I didn't come up with, or I like hey wife who's home on.

Chad:

Your wife's got the most views. She's got the top five posts for us.

Brian:

Can you please come up with this thing for me while you sit at home with our children and are on some break?

Chad:

She knows the right trending songs to use. That's the.

Brian:

Oh, that's a take. She's just who? Well, right now, while feeding her son, just scrolls through reels all the time and sees them. So she's more up on it.

Alec:

All right. Well, fridge, this one, yeah, I don't like A double hazy. Ipa is a tough fridger. I don't remember I should have listened back and see where I placed King Citra. So you did homework, but not enough homework.

Chad:

I did not do enough homework. That's probably good. You had a clear mind to enter this, instead of letting the King yeah, shade my judgment.

Alec:

I don't remember the king being as hazy.

Chad:

It was more orange juicy.

Alec:

It was a little bit juicier, a little bit.

Brian:

The smell on this is very good it gets there, I would buy a mixed four pack and have them.

Alec:

One of these in there.

Brian:

I would just let them roll once or twice a year by a new four pack.

Alec:

The thing I was going is it's like a beer fridger, but it's not a seasonal, it's just kind of not a constant. I need this in the fridge, but like a Every once in a while. Every once in a while, I'll have it in there.

Brian:

Here's what I can relate this to. So, because they seem to be not maybe as much. One of my favorite structures has Fuzz, which is their house IPA. It's hazy. They will do different versions of it all the time. I will always buy the new version Anytime I see them around, and then every once in a while I circle back and grab the OG. That's what I see with this. If I'm in the area and that's like the brewery, I might always have one of like. Once a year or something, I'm buying a four pack of the main one and then anytime there's that new one, I'm going to seek it out and grab it, it'll be interesting when they come up with like a czar citra or a.

Alec:

God.

Chad:

Emperor.

Brian:

Yeah, what's other?

Chad:

Oh, yeah, yeah, now that Dune is finally coming out.

Alec:

Cesar citra. I know Somebody would pick up on that.

Chad:

Yeah it just wasn't going to be me Well, because they could actually start. We'll see if the new Wonka gives any to me.

Brian:

Shimulamon, shimulamon.

Chad:

A little extra juice going into the Dune. I just want it out and done so I can watch them both back to back. Yeah, and I also want the director's cut of the entire thing I was going to say.

Alec:

Would you do a double header in the theater? Yes, IMAX.

Chad:

Imax that would be the first IMAX movie I would go and see is just no break. We're going to give you an empty five gallon bucket, just pissing the bucket. Yeah, that one, visually was. You can bring in a cooler and a piss bucket.

Alec:

There is six hours of Dune, yeah, but stop reading after the first book.

Chad:

Oh, I have done the YouTube dive and Wikipedia for everything past the first book. It goes absolutely insane and it detracts from the quality of that initial book and then there was a podcast to listen to and they basically went yeah, everything after the first book. If the guy was having a shitty year, that was this is therapy, Like he was getting this book. He was getting divorced. The main character is just having sex 24 seven. Because this guy is going through a horrible, awful divorce, because he's a piece of shit.

Alec:

Yeah, he's not a great. Yeah, he's kind of a turned human person.

Chad:

But Anyways, that's Dune. Yeah, you frigid Beer fridge kind of the same idea as you guys. One of those ones. It sucks, it's not local. If this is local, yes, I would keep this and the king side by side in the fridge, just going to move it first. Yeah, definite beer fridge material Cool.

Alec:

All right, our glasses are empty. Hopefully yours are too. We'll catch you next time. So tasting notes. The clock strikes a new. This King Citro awakens in his parents basement with only one thing on his mind the battle. He straps on his cardboard chain mount, arms himself with his pool noodle broadsword, grabs his brown bag lunch and heads to the O'Lone Park to continue his campaign With towering aroma of mom's fresh squeezed orange juice and tangerines freshly picked from the backyard. No one will be competing with the king today. A thick and full mouth feel creates an orange whip like profile that sticks to the palate with a refreshingly dessert-esque fervor, slowly giving way to a soft bite of carbonation. As the sun sets across the horizon, king Citro fires thunderbolt after thunderbolt at every taste receptor. So they are overwhelmed and he struts away, crown atop his head, still reigning supreme over his empire of WIPA. From their website.