Dok has been coming up with IPA concepts for years now - sometimes I wonder when they will finally run out of ideas, but not this time, as this Mr. Wonderful presents a combination of hops which I am quite sure has never been done before on the planet. Why I am so sure? Well, the Flemish hop variety Groene Bel has only been rediscovered quite recently and it seems hard to imagine another brewer has already coincidentally stumbled upon the exact same combination with the eight (!) other varieties used here (especially with Nectaron being a fairly unknown and new variety from New Zealand)... Medium thick, snow white, slowly thinning but closed and stable, dot-lacing head over a clear, warm pale orangey-golden robe with a column of visible sparkling in the middle; especially that fact that it is clear till the end surprised me, as I was expecting some hazy IPA variant again. Aroma of sweet peach alternating with dried wormwood, toasted onion, pink grapefruit, guava, dried mango cubes, meadowsweet, green olive somewhere, Graham crackers, bread crust, grass, sandpaper, pond water. Clean, dryish onset, smooth green olive, light green guava and even lighter unripe peach notes, very low in sweetness, moderately carbonated with a rainwater-like minerally undertone running through the whole; smooth mouthfeel, quite slender for this ABV even, with a light oily texture. Dry cracker- and hard bread crust-like malts, slick, bittered by earthy Groene Bel, piney Columbus, classic 'oldskool U.S.' grapefruity Comet, peppery Chinook - and brief whiffs of sweet-peachy Nectaron and tropical Idaho7, providing sweet 'flashes' amidst a more profound, long-lasting, tonic-like, wormwoody bitterness. Feels like a 'mountain IPA' more tilted to the West than to the East - in fact we are, and I mean this just in very general taste and aroma terms, not that far away from old-fashioned West Coast IPA here (without it actually being one in the 'true' sense of the word). An IPA with a very surprising and interesting combination of hop varieties indeed - and one with the kind of drying bitterness, peppery character and utterly smooth drinkability I like a lot. A Dok IPA never disappoints.

15 January 2026. At Dok Brewing (Hal 16). Cheers to the Teamleader crew!

A: clear golden, small, off-white head.
A: pine, grapefruit peel, onion, melon, grass.
T: sweetish melon & grape, bitter pine, toasted onion.
F: bitter piney hops, grapefruit peel, grass.
P: medium body, oily texture, average carbonation.
Pure hop fest, so enjoyably bitter.