Other Half DDH Forever Simcoe and the freshest fresh beer renaissance
We're going to talk about drinking fresh beer a lot on this website
The beer: Other Half DDH Forever Simcoe Imperial IPA
ABV: 8.5%
How we got it: Other Half made this beauty available to the people ordering delivery and pickup during the second week of May. Your humble correspondent did not miss the opportunity
What they say: DDH Forever Simcoe is hopped with hand selected Simcoe hops which has a juicy pineapple kick to it. Then they double dry hop it with Simcoe Cryo.
What you say: This beer has a 4.3 rating on Untappd and a 4.4 on Beer Advocate.
What Mike says —
Today’s heady goodness is the Other Half DDH Forever Simcoe. It’s an imperial IPA. It comes with a nice amount of alcohol -- 8.5%. That number seems to be Other Half’s go-to alcohol content for its imperials. Huzzah.
The beer looks great in the frosty pint mug. Pale yellow. Super hazy. Just looking at it makes me feel like I’m accomplishing something. And I am.
This is another one from my recent delivery. It’s my favorite can design of the bunch. The green and purple look great. This is the beer that Donatello reaches for from the sewer fridge after an afternoon Bō training session.
Simcoe. As in Simcoe hops. There’s that special hop riddle again. I’m still learning about hops — and I have a lot to learn. Here’s a sentence about Simcoe hops from Hoplist that makes entirely no sense to me: “With a high alpha percentage and low cohumulone, it makes a very nice foundational bittering hop.”
Here’s some of the Simcoe description I can get down with, though: “It has a pleasantly fruity, yet earthy herbal and piney aroma.” I read that as less fruity than, for example, Mosaic hops which the experts say have notes of mango, blueberry, and something called stone fruit. I definitely get the earthy notes more so than fruit. It’s good beer to reach for if you’re feeling a little over juiced.
The main thing I want to talk about with this beer is the date on the can. 5/12/20. That’s the date that Other Half is telling me they canned this up. I got it on 5/14. Oh yeah, baby, that is fresh. You can feel the freshness in the clean, smooth way it goes down the gullet.
Makes me think. Has the coronavirus, which ushered in this new era of beer delivery, subsequently introduced fresher home beer drinking for the novices like me who are getting their home beer directly from the source for the first time?