People do get confused when they spot our Hopinator gizmo, they really do. Most often, they mistake it for a trophy of some sort, sitting rather-randomly on the bar. You have to sympathise, admittedly. But you do have to wonder what the trophy was for, when they saw it like this.

Twisted Hop’s IPA is bloody lovely. I’ve had a fair amount of it — and have certainly had it to excess, on one memorable occasion — and it definitely has a bitter, fruity snap to it. So hell, why not pile the Hopinator full of mandarins, and bam that up a notch? The result was really interesting; the familiar Cascade hops have a distinct citrussy bitterness, but here’s that flavour coming from actual fruit, too, so you get this nice moment of clarity about how the one really does taste like the other, but also are reminded of how different they are. If that makes any sense. This is a stonking great big beer; it is difficult to continue to make much sense when standing in its blast radius.

Verbatim: Twisted Hop IPA & Mandarins 23/9/10 Hopinated @ MH on fresh — whole! — mandarins. 6.4%? Seems slightly mad at first, but the Hopinator looks awesome with weirdly-distorted fruit in it, and it does work. The IPA is weighty enough to not be overwhelmed, and the pithy fruity bitterness that is leeched off the fruit nicely highlights the similar flavours that were already in there. Pretty damn full-on, but good.