Trillium Brewing Company// Cutting Tiles Double IPA

If you’re following the New England IPA craze, you’re well aware that there are some brews out there that are more sought after than others. One of the breweries making those coveted brews is Trillium Brewing Company; known for their intensely juicy, hazy India pale ales. Luckily, I have some really generous friends that were able to get their hands on a rather large selection of Trillium beers, so they decided to throw a few of them my way. I was gifted three double IPAs, but, of those three, my favorite was a Mosaic hop heavy brew called Cutting Tiles. Here are my thoughts:

One thing I love about these Trillium beers is that they only come in 16 oz, tallboy cans. There’s just something fun about pouring a beer out of one of these behemoths. Also, you’ll notice that the cans are not printed on, but rather they have a sticker as the artwork. A cheaper alternative for brewers when they’re releasing a smaller batch of beer, but still want to offer the freshness and quality protection of a can.

The first thing you notice is that when you pop the top on the can, you get immediately hit in the nose with the smell of fresh juice. Even if it’s on the counter or table and you’re a good foot away, you’re still going to smell the intense, juicy hop aroma. The beer pours a deep, hazy orange color with about half a finger’s width of white head. The process for these beers is a bit different, and that’s really another discussion all together, but the way they’re made is the cause of the hazy appearance. It looks thick and without any light coming through the beer. I know this is going to be good.

The aroma is incredible. The fact that they can get these aromas and so many different fruit-like notes just from hops gives me chills. It’s really like witchcraft. You get notes of tropical fruit like pineapple and mango, but also mixed in is a bit of peach and what smells like apricot or something similar.

Once you taste one of these beers, you’ll never view another IPA in the same light. Huge juice notes that remind you of almost like orange mango juice. Up front you get a big fruity complexity that gives you almost a sensory overload; a ton of lemon, orange, and some floral and herbal notes like pine and something like fresh cut grass. Then you start to pick up on some of the bitterness that really isn’t overwhelming, but it definitely lets you know it’s there that comes. Finally, at the end of every sip you get this nice, subtle sweetness that’s pretty refreshing followed by a wallop of booze at the very end. The beer weighs in at 8.5% so that should be a little expected in my opinion.

Mouthfeel on this one is like only a few beers I’ve ever had. The carbonation is light to medium and offers a nice subtle bubbly character on the tongue. The beer finishes very dry, but it’s a refreshing dryness that you would want from a beer like this. Going back to earlier when I said that the beer was thick, that aspect combined with the juice like flavors and aromas makes this almost feel like a carbonated juice. It’s insane the fact that there were no fruits used in the brewing process, because you taste them so vividly.

Overall, this is a world-class beer and if you ever have the opportunity to drink this or any other Trillium beer, I highly suggest taking the opportunity by the horns. The guys working there are doing the Lord’s work by creating incredible tasting brews that pack quite the punch on both the taste side and the alcohol side. I don’t necessarily think I could drink several of these in a sitting, but I know I could and did enjoy the one I had on a warm afternoon sitting on the back porch. So, again, if you can find it, drink it, because you definitely won’t regret it.

 

 

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