Reviewed: Cellarmaker Cloudy With a Chance of Dobis
Official description: [From the brewery website] The Dobis family is dedicated to brews made with 100% Citra. Our can list, like this Bay Area weather, is changing all the time. However, we love Citra so much, there is usually a chance of Dobis. This Dobis has an expressive yeast to soften & add even more tropical fruity flavors to your experience. We enjoy the aromas of passionfruit, tangerine & pineapple.
[From the brewery Instagram] Brewed with two lots of Citra as well as Citra Cryo and fermented with expressive yeast, Cloudy With a Chance of Dobis is the Hazy New England style IPA of our 100% Citra Dobis series. This beer is jam packed with sticky aromas of pineapple, orange and guava and layered with zesty and piney Citra flavor. A chewy, deep haze provides fluffy body and a long juicy finish.
Cellarmaker Brewing Co. – Cellarmaker Cloudy With a Chance of Dobis – 16oz can served in Rastal Harmony glass – 6.8% ABV
Background
I reviewed a couple of hoppy Cellarmaker beers last year including The Snuggler and Mt. Nelson. Both were seriously impressive, so I was elated to receive a box of Cellarmaker IPAs last month from my good friend Andrew. Thank you! I was fortunate enough to try Mo’ Simcoe, I See a Dankness, Kilning Me Softly, and Turok: Mosaic Hunter in addition to Cloudy With a Chance of Dobis. I thoroughly enjoyed Mo’ Simcoe and Turok: Mosaic Hunter, though these are clear West Coast IPAs with a clean, familiar profile. Cloudy With a Chance of Dobis was possibly my favorite of these five.
Though once extremely difficult to procure outside the bay area, Cellarmaker beers are now available for mail order in California and Nevada – one of the better side effects of the pandemic. Check out their webstore here.
Review
I’m reviewing Cloudy With a Chance of Dobis (CCD from now on) from a 4-pack of 16oz cans that was picked up for $18 plus tax. On the can, the only description you get is “100% Citra to the Dome!” It’s also hard to see in the photo, but the can artwork is a depiction of San Francisco with giant pineapples raining from the sky. On the bottom of the can, “I.P.A.” is given as the style. Though on the brewery’s Instagram, Hazy New England-style IPA is mentioned.
Into my glass, CCD is a fully hazy, glowing gold color with craggy white foam that sticks around for several minutes before collapsing. The aroma immediately hits you with bright pineapple, orange sherbet push pop, red mango, banana, and papaya. The flavor follows suit with a juicy mix of the above tropical fruits combining with mid-range sweetness and modest bitterness for a luscious fruit smoothie experience. Unlike most other Hazy IPAs I’ve sampled, CCD avoids the overly chalky, cement slurry flavors that plague the substyle. It also avoids tasting like grassy, pulverized hop matter – another common NEIPA fault. Rather, CCD rewards you with a whipped and slightly creamy mouthfeel with no lingering harshness whatsoever. The end result is refreshing, juicy to the max, and incredibly satisfying.
Perceived Specs for Cellarmaker Cloudy With a Chance of Dobis
Conclusion
Cloudy With a Chance of Dobis one of the few New England-style IPAs to deliver on that tropical fruit smoothie aroma and flavor. More often than not, these turbid beers marketed as “juicy” and “tropical” end up tasting yeasty, flabby, and dulled out with chalk and concrete flavors. For someone who orders clear West Coast IPAs 10 out of 10 times, this beer was an epiphany for me.
VERDICT: 99 pts (SUPERLATIVE)
* * *
The Full Pint is a fully independent website dedicated to bringing you the highest quality reviews of today’s craft beer. Our team has no financial conflicts of interest with the beer industry in order to give you the least biased information out there in today’s craft beer world. Please use the comment section below for general comments about this beer and/or our review. For more information on how we review beer read here.
