This review was written over a week ago but posted now but I was recently visiting my local Liquor Marts and looking at the Manitoba single-serve craft beer section of the store (which is easily 45% of the Canadian beer selection at my local store) and this beer called Monolithic really popped out at me as I was thinking "huh, this is new, a new brewery?!" Turns out nope, Monolithic is a new series of single hop IPAs brewed by Barn Hammer in Winnipeg Years ago I fell in love with Quebec's Vox Populi's single hopped series of IPAs so I kept wishing for it to be a thing here in Manitoba.. so I'm excited for this, though they're nowhere near the first to the game with Kilter having their Fog Machine series and Devil May Care with their Nothin but the Hops' series, but it's never too late to get into that game!
Monolithic No 1 single hop IPA features exclusively the Simcoe hop which they list as having notes of pine, stone fruit and citrus zest. 6.3% ABV
Appearance: Bright, golden-orange & hazy. Decent amount of snow white carbonation on top at the beginning, diminishes rather quickly to leave behind just a light touch of bubbles on top, near the middle. Light carbonation in the body.
Aroma: Yeah, pretty much a Simcoe IPA, nothing wrong with that. The Simcoe hop was used in a bunch of IPAs I loved when IPAs were transitioning from bitter to citrusy and tropical, it was basically a middle in the road kind of hop. It gives off a mild-to-high bitterness of pine, but also has a really heavy floral presence to it, a sweet stone fruit presence and a bit of a citrusy perfume-like presence to it. Tad grainy, bit of caramel sweetness. Decent.
Taste: Leafy, piney IPA with a bit of a corn chip-like vegetal presence to it. Tad bit of stone fruit, sweet but predominantly bitter with a squeeze of lemon for citrus flavour. The bitterness of the hops lingers for a good moment or two.
Overall Thoughts: This won't be for everyone but this brings me back to approximately seven years ago when IPAs were starting to go through a huge existential crisis which is never going to end at this point. Bitter and piney but not obnoxious for me, though it will be for those wanting a more tropical-forward hop. I feel like they need to come out with a vertical taster pack one day to show how a single variety of hop can change a beer so much.
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