Reviewed: Monday Night Dust Bunny Hazy IPA
Product description: Dust Bunny is packed with aromatics of orange and lemon dripping with honey. Its soft yet bright body contributes notes of peach. Moderate bitterness balances a juicy mouthfeel for an all-around refreshing IPA. [Grain Bill: Flaked Wheat, 2-row, Munich, and Carapils. Hops: Comet, Ekuanot, Citra, and Mandarina Bavaria. 60 IBUs, 6.8% ABV] More about this beer here.
Monday Night Brewing – Monday Night Dust Bunny Hazy IPA – 12oz can served in nonic pint – 6.8% ABV
Sampled from a 12oz can, Dust Bunny is fully hazy deep golden to almost amber in color with larger, cream-colored foam. It looks less soupy than other NE-style IPAs at first, but once I got to the bottom of the can, a large amount of sediment came out. It was a shock to me, at least, since I rarely see sediment in canned IPAs. That addition murks up the beer quite a bit and even adds visible particles of sediment floating in suspension. (Photo above was taken before adding in the sediment inadvertently.)
Dive in and you get an inviting aroma of sweetened canned peach and pear along with juicy mandarin orange. It’s unique and certainly takes full advantage of its hop varieties, especially Mandarina Bavaria. The flavor is similar with moderate bitterness and so much fruitiness, it could pass for a fruited blonde ale. Bitterness I would place at a 4/10 as there is a bit of a spicy hop bite at the beginning, but it doesn’t persist and overtake the experience. Sugary canned peach couples with soda-like carbonation to give you a Fresca flavor. Dust Bunny stays on course through the finish with moderate sugar at a 5/10 and an overall creamy mouthfeel. Mineral flavors from all the yeast and proteins in suspension are mild at best and don’t turn the mouthfeel chalky or gritty. It’s 6.8% is wholly masked by the powerful fruit juice flavors and spicy hop bite. The finish is semi-dry and the beer ends up being perfectly balanced. Truly, I’m impressed after picking this beer apart.
Overall, Dust Bunny is a fun beer to drink and is easily my favorite beer thus far from Monday Night. It wholly lacks the chalky and gritty flavors I usually find in hazy IPAs and exudes powerful peach, pear, and mandarin orange flavors to the point of tasting like a fruit beer vs. any type of IPA. That’s pretty much the point of many hazy IPAs. So in that regard, Dust Bunny hits a home run.
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