Santas Hop Sack Hazy Orange IPA

Style: IPA
Brewery: Amundsen
Origin: Norway
Size: 44cl
Alcohol: 5.3%
Price: 40kr
Systembolaget: 3213414

Amundsen is Oslo’s biggest brewery and one of Norway’s largest craft breweries. Opening in 2011 as a brew pub, they quickly expanded and now own a 42Hl capacity brewery which opened in 2016. This has been brewed with copious amounts of Citra and Amarillo hops. Amundsen must be one of the breweries I have had the most in my tastings over the years as they have a reputation of producing good to excellent beers. Unfortunately, this didn’t quite reach the high I was expecting from them.

This had a light cloud to the straw colour, topped with a medium to low head and medium carbonation. The beer did exactly what it said on the can, with a big orange oil note in the aroma at the forefront along with grapefruit and pine backing it up. The taste was pleasant but not overwhelming, with again the orange peel adding a good bite to proceedings and helping to balance the light malt notes. The carbonation and body were both perfect for the style, adding depth to the beer. The fruity bitter notes lasted on the tongue for a long time before fading, leaving the mouth extremely dry.

This was a good beer, but it left me wanting a bit more in terms of flavour. That might have just be me expecting too much from Amundsen though. In the end it was enjoyable and I could drink it again, but there are better IPA on the market to choose from.