Master (Hazy) West Coast IPA
De Meester in Lendelede, West Flanders, Belgium 🇧🇪
IPA - West Coast Regular|
Score
7.23
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Alengrin (11609) reviewed Master (Hazy) West Coast IPA from De Meester 7 months ago
Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7.5 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7
De Meester is beginning to dabble into IPA territory and this new one is apparently intended as a West Coast IPA - but then the brewer adds the word "Hazy" to the beer's name, uses Idaho 7 hops which were only invented in 2015, and advertises it as having "notes of tropical fruit". I need no further information to know that this overrated brewery has no clue as to what actual West Coast IPA was, but let us give this a chance for science. Can bought at De Picker in Zele. Frothy, egg-white, intricately 'Brugse kant'-like lacing, medium thick, firm yet gradually receding head over a hazy apricot blonde robe with peachy tinge, turning all cloudy or even 'milky' with sediment - the looks of any serious NEIPA, but not at all of a WCIPA. Aroma of pomelo, guava, blood orange zest, green mango, yellow kiwi (the Nelson Sauvin no doubt), pink pepper, tangerine, meringue, Graham crackers, touch of dried dill, diesel, cooked bell pepper, papaya, background notes of spoiled oatmeal porridge, mud and olive oil. Juicy onset with impressions of guava, tangerine, Zespri kiwi and halfripe mango, quite lively carbonated with some minerally 'stings' adding crispness; supple, medium full body. Cereally, porridge-like malt core drenched in citric and tropically-fruity hops, bursting with honey pomelo (flesh and zest), papaya, green mango and granadilla, as an underlying bitter aspect develops - yet remaining zesty and 'friendly', even if stretching out over the finish for quite a while. Ends a bit powdery but without hop burn, zesty and quite bright with a peppery twist - but remains firmly in the NEIPA territory, which is what bothers me the most here: West Coast IPA was the kind of IPA that was not only dominant when I began to venture into beer tasting, it was the only kind in existence, if its own double variant (think Pliny the Elder), the non-related original English IPA and the red and white variants are ignored (black IPA was still largely unknown in those days even though technically it already existed). Since several years, following a worldwide dominance of hazy NEIPAs, they have re-emerged, but in a world already ruined by hazy IPA dominance, what you get is NEIPA which inclines a bit more to the bitter side - not unlike Heady Topper or Focal Banger, in fact, the first NEIPAs ever. Obviously we are far removed from Heady Topper or Focal Banger here, and I could complain for many an hour about WCIPA not being what it used to be: I guess present-day craft brewers around the western world were scarcely around when actual WCIPA ruled the IPA world and think that making a NEIPA a bit more bitter makes it qualify as one. In that sense, this is indeed one of those contemporary WCIPAs again, but for me it will never qualify as one. That said, I have to admit that it has crispness, colour and vibrancy more than I was expecting from this brewery and is therefore not a bad IPA (generally speaking) at all; in fact, to Belgian standards, it has a very Anglo-Saxon feel to it and very little "Belgian IPA", if any at all. Bottom line, then: this is by no means a WCIPA for me, but it does qualify as a more than decent, pungent, slick 'true' IPA much more so than I was expecting. Perhaps this brewery's true strength does lie in the vast field of IPA after all? Let us see - but in the meantime, I cannot stress enough that this one is not a West Coast IPA regardless of which way you look at it.
gave a cheers!
tderoeck (22711) reviewed Master (Hazy) West Coast IPA from De Meester 10 months ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 9 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5
11/IV/25 - 33cl can from Geers (Oostakker), shared @ holiday in France, BB: VIII/2026 (2025-337)
Pretty cloudy beige blond beer, creamy off-white head, a little stable, adhesive, leaving a nice lacing in the glass. Aroma: lovely smell, very fruity, citrus, piny, grassy touch, nice! MF: ok carbon, medium to full body. Taste: good bitterness up front, fruity, a bit grassy, pleasant, tropical fruits, resinous hops, very bitter. Aftertaste: hoppy, resinous, very bitter, a bit grassy, marijuana, nice stuff!