Tasting Notes - Mikkeller Hoppy Easter

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This morning, The Easter Bunny has been very busy, dropping off various eggs and chocolate confectionary to remind  children all over the world of the deeply religious significance of Bourneville, Chocolate Buttons and Bunnies. I didn't get any chocolate but I did receive from the alcoholic Easter Bunny a rather fine and lovely looking bottle of a beer made by Danish Brewers, Mikkeller appropriately entitled Hoppy Easter.


Despite the name, the beer is not a seasonal beer. Instead, it is produced all year round and usually goes by the name of Drikkeriget GIPA. It is a 6.6% American IPA using German Tettnanger hops for aroma and Tomahawk hops for bittering. It also has a combination of pilsner, pale and Munich malts. I can only assume that the G in the GIPA stands for German, given the use of these malts and hops.


It has a pretty little cartoon label of a buck toothed bunny happily carrying a basket of hop cones and beer as it bounds excitedly down the sun lit road handing out it's beery loveliness.


It pours a radiant orange amber colour that sits opaquely below a thick white foamy head. It pours and looks like a hefeweissen and it's aroma is not too disimilar also. It has a bready, floury and fairly spicy nose imbued with tentative floral, herbal and grassy lemon notes. It tasted very light and quite summery.


The grassy lemoness of the aroma carries itself through into the taste with these being the initial flavours in the mouth along with a spicy, earthy hop profile. The hops are there but don't dominate and gradually give way to a stiff malt backbone that resonates with more bread dipped in some gorgeously sweet honey. There is also a slight Belgian yeasty taste and flavour to the beer that makes it quite tart, however, the delicate balance of the spicy, floral  hops and the malt sweetness make the taste of this beer very enjoyable. The crisp effervescence of the beer lends itself to being a lovely thirst quencher on a hot summer day.


The Tomahawk hops linger bitterly in the mouth long after the beer has gone as does the sweetness that coats your mouth and lips with honey stickiness that is most enjoyable.


It wasn't quite the huge hop bomb that I was expecting, but it is a very tasty, refreshing and well balanced beer that hid it's 6.6% alcohol extremely well and a beer that I would be sourcing out and enjoying more of when, and if, the Sun finally comes out to play.





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