God, you must be sick of all these Four Winds reviews by now. “How much are they paying that guy?” you’re wondering.
“Not enough beer,” is my reply. It’s difficult to understate how impressive Four Winds brewing output has become. To put it in some context, in my (almost) five years writing about beer in B.C., I’ve never seen another brewery release so many consistently amazing beers. It’d be boring, if it wasn’t all so delicious.
So, here we go again. Vexillum. It’s an imperial IPA, so we’re outside of Four Winds’ relative comfort sphere of Belgian influence. But that doesn’t really matter.
It pours a cloudy apricot colour with glowing golden highlights. On top is a bright white cloud of loosely packed foam that sticks to the glass in dots and strips like some sort of alien Morse code.
And yes, there’s another incredible nose. The flesh and rind of Seville oranges, with tarter grapefruit, lemon and lime highlights and a denser cantaloupe richness, backed by a zesty earthiness and passion fruit spiciness.
Take a sip and there’s a rich melon-orange mix with some grapefruit up front before a wall of dense orange-rind bitterness slowly rears up in the finish like a thimble-shot of Stroh. There’s an edge of herbal greenness around the flavours too, which comes a little more into play in the finish.
Allow me some memories of my childhood in Scotland. It’s like putting all the original flavours of Opal Fruits in your mouth at once. It’s like deliberately under-diluting your Robinson’s squash to get that hit of almost unbearable sweetness.
It’s like a coastal orange orchard (OK, we’re not in Scotland any more). It’s got the zesty odour, the musty humidity tempered by a cool breeziness, the green shade, the richness of the soil. If Four Winds had been around in the 1980s, the Man from Del Monte would have bought it in a heartbeat (he doesn’t seem to be short of a plantation or two, after all), changed his name to the Man from Delta Monte and just sat in the brewery’s tasting room all day drinking Vexillum and muttering “yes” a lot.
It’s like Phaedra minus the crackly, yeasty rye spice but with an added dimension of complexity. And even stronger. Danger! Danger! High voltage!
650ml, get it while you can
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