Fundamentals #27 — Fuerst Wiacek A Quick One IPA

Fundamentals #27 — Fuerst Wiacek A Quick One IPA

Citra and Mosaic are my homeboys, I like hanging out with them often. I also enjoy it when they’re accompanied by pals like El Dorado, Amarillo, Nelson Sauvin and even Simcoe (although the latter sometimes feels like he may be trying a little too hard to roll with the cool kids these days). They are fundamental to the modern, hoppy, hazy pales I have spent much of my recent time obsessing over.

There’s an argument that a lot these modern beers, with their juice dialled up and the bitterness muted, are very similar in character. On the surface that much is true. But the more I delve into them, the more subtle variances I detect between them. That might be something as simple as a beer's mouthfeel, or how that beer’s specific yeast has added its own character - for better or worse.

Drinking a modern beer hopped with Citra and Mosaic can be as exciting for me as it can be refreshing, because I can still be surprised by how the flavours in that beer present themselves - be they through citrus or tropical fruits, through peach and apricot driven esters or through heady, dank, onion, pine and wild garlic. Yes I like that too.

Fuerst Wiacek - a brewery based out of Berlin, Germany, but currently with no production facility of its own - is a new one to me. The brewery describes its beers as modern and balanced and my first impression of its New England style IPA A Quick One would indicate that this statement holds true.

That depends of course on your definition of balance. If a beer with a fruit basket of tropical notes from papaya to mango to lychee that’s wrapped up in a soft, yet featherlight body with a delicate, dry yet ever-so-slightly bitter finish is your idea of balance, then this beer will almost certainly be right up your avenue.

This is an excellent modern IPA, and an exemplary use of my good friends Citra and Mosaic. I look forward to spending some more time with them should they show up in a Fuerst Wiacek beer once more.

You can find more from beer writer Matthew Curtis as UK editor of Good Beer Hunting and on Twitter @totalcurtis. Pick up A Quick One in store or online.