Can from a local supermarket. Resinous hop with malt, pine resin, orange, stone fruit, marmalade, a little grapefruit. Medium bitter with a mild sweetness. Bit sticky, resinous hop finish. Strong, bittersweet and piney.

Triple IPA (or close to it at least - for me the use of 'triple' in IPA context requires an ABV of minimum 10% but this is rather subjective obviously) in which, oddly, not the hops are explicited as the stars of the show, but some yeast strain indigenous to La Réunion in the Indian Ocean, isolated from an indigenous species of St. John's wort there by a local craft brewer - but from what I could find, this yeast strain is just plain old Saccharomyces cerevisiae growing in an inaccessible place in the wild. Strange to find something like this on the shelf of an Albert Heijn supermarket, but this is 2026 after all (not to forget that the once bold and innovative Uiltje has been taken over by corporate brewing meanwhile too)... Irregular yet stable, opening, off-white, tiny bubbled head lacing in shreds over an initially clear, deep orange blonde, in fact almost amber robe with visible sparkling in the middle. Aroma of drying orange peel, grapefruit zest, pink peppercorns, red curry paste, turmeric, triple sec, dry biscuit, crackers, wodka, deep-fried parsley, dried rowan berries, roasted bell pepper, paprika powder. Dryish onset with flashes of sweeter persimmon through dried peach and dried lingonberry notes, yet altogether clean and very low in esters; moderately to even softly carbonated with oily, full mouthfeel (though seemingly thinned a bit by alcohol). Peanutty, cracker-like 'amber' malts, only remotely sweetish, under slightly tropical hop aromas (mango hints, honey pomelo, tamarillo - but all quite 'muffled') and growing hop bitterness, which eventually becomes wide-spread over the tongue, even if an important part of that bitterness is due to the alcohol. The latter behaves altogether decent for a 9.5% pale beer, but in the end still becomes way too astringent for me, though I have to admit that with the IPA concept in mind, its pepperiness does lend the hops a bit more 'punch'. Dry finish, with the hops being citrus pith-, tonic water- and bitter herb-like, in spite of those retronasal tropical aromas (which were very volatile anyway). In that sense, this reminds me a bit of the new Mr. Worldwide by Dok I had earlier tonight: strong, clear (!), sleek and bitter, but still with flashes of tropical fruit sweetness... Notice, meanwhile, that I am primarily talking about the play of hops, malts and alcohol here but hardly about the properties of the yeast, because it does not matter so much: the beer is not yeasty at all to begin with and moreover this 'yellow flower' strain is actually, biologically, just cultured yeast, so why bother? Generally speaking, a decent triple IPA of the 'old school', West Coast idiom - or at least 'kissed' by it. Can I start having hopes that the original West Coast style is silently making its way into the present Euro IPA world?