Nova
Innova Brewery in Haaltert, East Flanders, Belgium 🇧🇪
IPA - New England / Hazy Regular Out of Production|
Score
6.15
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a subtle bitterness from the hop selection (Cascade, Centennial
and Styrian Golding), herbal hints,... and above all lots of taste!
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tderoeck (22946) reviewed Nova from Innova Brewery 6 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 4.5
Imported from my RateBeer account as Innova Nova (by Innova Brewery):
Aroma: 6/10, Appearance: 4/5, Taste: 5/10, Palate: 3/5, Overall: 9/20, MyTotalScore: 2.7/5
28/IV/19 - sample @ Zythos Bierfestival 2019 (Leuven), BB: n/a - (2019-649) Thanks to nathanvc, 77ships & Anke for sharing today's beers!
Clear blond to gold beer, big fizzy aery white head, bit stable, bit adhesive. Aroma: banana, cloves, spicy, yeast, weird, by no means is this a NEIPA. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: sweet and malty start, some caramel, soft bitterness, red liquorice. Aftertaste: little bitter, sweet malts, caramel, bit resinous, lots of overripe banana. Piss poor excuse for a NEIPA… Also pretty lame of the brewery to make an account and rate all of their own beers 4+. Shame, double shame on you!
Alengrin (11675) reviewed Nova from Innova Brewery 7 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 5.5
One of the four beers Innova launched itself onto the craft beer market with not long ago, an attempt at New England IPA, using wheat malt and dry-hopped with Summit, with additional Cascade, Centennial and Styrian Goldings hops - not the most appropriate choice of hop varieties for the intended style if you ask me, but anyway. Strong pressure on the bottle, but no gushing. Initially very frothy, thick, beaten egg-like, pale yellowish white, audibly crackling head, eventually thinning dramatically if not disappearing completely, on an immediately misty, warm golden-hued apricot blonde beer with strong visible sparkling rushing through the mist - and a suspension of tiny, translucent yeast bits everywhere. Aroma remarkably sweet, fruity and yeasty, with a very strong presence of ripe banana and indeed banana-flavoured bubblegum (isoamylacetate), next to candyfloss, ripe melon, apricot jam, red apple peel, sweet clementine, soggy sweetbread, fresh basil or even peppermint leaves, grass, phenolic hint of cloves, soap - the nose of a sweet, almost 'Dutch style' Hefeweizen, as my colleague below keenly observes, but nothing reminiscent of a true NEIPA. Same story in the mouth: very fruity, estery onset, very crisp with lively, finely but enthusiastically stinging, minerally carbonation (way too lively for style), very pronounced sweet and bubblegummy banana ester, notes of ripe peach, melon and canned pineapple with a dash of ripe pear thrown in, supple and fluffy body but without the creaminess and soft 'powderiness' I tend to expect from the style, sweetbready and doughy malts with a certain wheaty soapiness to it, which only in the finishing stage receive a mildly peppery, herbal (basil!) and floral dosage of hoppiness, with a refined trail of bitterness piercing through the lingering banana ester and malt sweetness. In terms of retronasal aroma, I get only a fragile hint of sweet orange or clementine - and back in the mouth, a weird kind of spiciness develops, indeed very reminiscent of the old curaçao even though the label does not mention any spices. Phenolic, clove- and vaguely anise-like accents are noticeable as well. Even more unexpectedly, a touch of badly hidden, 'jenever'-ish alcohol makes a brief but unmistakable appearance in the tail as well. Well... where to begin? I did not expect this to be a successful NEIPA at all, to be honest (only very few Belgian brewers, Totem is one of them, have managed to succeed at that so far anyway), but this is as much a NEIPA as Orval is a milk stout. There is literally nothing NEIPA-like to this beer, so I am not even going to bother summing up the shortcomings in terms of 'truth to style' - see above for the details and interpret them accordingly, I would say... Weird little beer, indeed very Hefeweizen-like, with very likely a dash of witbier spicing thrown in; the hops sadly get lost in yeasty effects and maltiness, as is so often the case in Belgian attempts at whatever IPA substyle. I expect Summit to be oniony and grapefruity - yet there is no way anyone in a blind tasting can identify this glorious hop variety in this beer. Points off for pretending to be something it is not in the most remote way imaginable but that said, and judged completely independently of its style intentions, this is fairly enjoyable (if too sweet for me) and I'm sure it can achieve local popularity to some degree. But be fair to the craft beer community as well, guys, and remove all IPA associations from the label please.
nathanvc (7053) reviewed Nova from Innova Brewery 7 years ago
Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 4.5
24 February 2019. Wieze Bierfestival - cheers to Meeki, Ama Deke & the lovely Anke! Supposedly a New England IPA brewed with - if I remember correctly - curaçao and clove. I don't know if this has been done before, but it struck me as a weird choice. Anyway, it pours clear orange with a quickly thinning, frothy, white head; little lacing. Aroma consists mainly of ripe banana, clove & orange peel indeed, white bread, honey, overripe peach, white sugar. Taste is medium fruity sweet, lots of dried banana giving it an estery character, next to notes of peach & honey on a yeasty & 'white' bready malty base; light to medium spicy bitter middle brings clove, grass, orange peel, faint pepper, which results in a dryish, grassy hoppy finish, with more estery yeast, grain, honey, and even a rather weird dash of almost wry alcohol in the back. Medium body, slick texture, lively carbonation. Well, clove & orange peel are definitely noticeable here, but I think the end result misses the point of a New England IPA, leaning more towards a Hefeweizen or something, lacking in fruity aroma, juicy taste and 'noble' hop bitterness in the end. On a sidenote, although I had a pleasant, short chat with the brewers at the stand, I cannot help but notice the first rating here: the user only gives exorbitant ratings to the four Innova beers. If the brewer is involved, I'd say that's an unsporting practice - get your shit together!