Breakfast Beer Tasting: Kernel Citra IPA

Don’t you just love the smell of napalm in the morning? Hell, who doesn’t? But you know there may be something to top even that: Citra. Yes, we’re talking tropical fruit hoptastic here. And precede Citra with the word Kernel and Friday is looking promising.

It’s 6.5% and is a bottle-conditioned 330ml. It poured hazy amber with good carbonation and a thin white head. The aroma was-as you’d expect-very pungent. Lots of tropical fruit: lychee, peach, and mango in that order with some paprika thrown in for good measure.

The beer itself was medium-bodied and very smooth. There are even more tropical fruit flavours in the taste and you get tangerine and pithy orange in there as well. It’s all very refreshing even without the presence of grapefruit which you often associate with hoppy IPAs. The slightly herbal bitterness reaches a crescendo to leave a dry finish that demands you try some more.

Kernel have tweaked their legendary IPA up from its previous 6.2% and it’s a smash success. This is a tremendous beer. The aroma is incredible and the taste washes over you like the waves in Hawaii. It went down quicker than George Osborne on a line of cocaine; so get it while you can.