Modern Times Geodesic
Product description: This wheat IPA is a 7.5% symphony of tropical dankness, replete with nigh-on irresponsible quantities of Citra, Mosaic, & Simcoe hops. It’s delightfully complex, insanely crushable, and extremely frickin’ tasty.
Modern Times Beer – Modern Times Geodesic – 22 oz. bottle poured into a chalice – 7.5% abv.
From a 22oz bomber picked up at the brewery with an illegible bottling date printed near the base, Geodesic is hazy, glowing gold into the wine stemware with a large, white head of meringue-textured foam. Thick rings of lacing decorate the edges of the glass. There’s quite a bit of sediment in the bottom of the bottle that I did not dump into the original pour. In later pours, I included the sediment and it transforms the beer to look like your typical hazy IPA: murky and opaque.
The aroma is a familiar one, perhaps akin to MT’s Booming Rollers with a distinct sweeter aroma with pineapple juice, green banana, saltwater/sweat, and noticeable sweet alcohol like a mixed drink. There’s a plastic-like overtone to the aroma, though, like smelling a freshly opened Ziploc bag. It’s not what I’ve come to expect from MT. It’s odd because I first tried this beer on tap at the brewery and didn’t note that, but that was sampled from a miniature stemless wine taster with not as much headspace in the glass.
Flavor-wise, this was a bit of a letdown. The body starts off with prickly carbonation and vodka-soaked honeydew melon segueing to melon rinds and apple skins. The body is a touch watery and chalky and it seems to just sit there through the finish with nothing interesting going on. When I tried this on tap at the brewery, I noted that this was soft and juicy with tangerine, yellow mango, quenching saltwater, and a silky palate. I’m not sure what changed between here and there. Once the yeast sediment was dumped in and this looked the part of a real hazy IPA, not much changed, though the chalkiness in the palate was dialed up to create a talcum powder mouthfeel
I looked up the stats for this beer and it tastes more bitter than the label states at 30 IBUs, though it may be that the thinner body is exacerbating that number. The 7.5% similarly seems more prominent than similar beers at this ABV with a sharp tang in the back of the palate. My overall experience is that this beer needs some fine tuning.
Overall, you could probably pass on this month’s distributed special release from MT, though tap versions may be excellent as in my experience. And that’s okay because Modern Times puts out a ton of new beers each year and not all of them can be perfect.
