Tuatara Double Trouble - Tuatara Brewing Co.

laituegonflable

Australia

4.18/5  rDev +1.2%
look: 2.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5

Pours a golden colour, clear with webbed white head that settles out quite quickly. Bit watery-looking for the style.

Pleasant IPA nose. Lots of US and NZ hop characters on show, fruity and floral and slightly piney. Hops are lovely and soft, though. It's tricky to get such a nice light fruity hop note for a big beer.

Malty character with US hops and NZ hops again giving fruity, resiny characters both upfront and towards the back. Bit of a boozey note, sweet though with nice hop oils. More sweet and malty on the palate than on the nose. Hops maybe take more of a back seat but it's decent.

Where's the booze here? Smooth, hoppy and good.

Great double IPA. Would be so easy to go overboard but there's a real artisanal feel to it.

Serving type: on-tap

12-22-2012 01:02:27 | More by laituegonflable

danieelol

Australia

4.4/5  rDev +6.5%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.75 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.5

This is an aggressive beer (you probably won't like it).

Pours a lovely filtered light golden/copper. Great head and lacing.

Smell is masses of pine, citrus, honeysuckle, tropical fruits, floral notes. This beer has a really ripping citrus character. What's another adjective for the nose? Pliny-esque.

Taste is mostly sweet honeymalt, honeysuckle with a hoppy marmalade backdrop. Has a real dryness to it but that dryness definitely leans in favour of hops over alcohol. And there is so much citrus happening on the palate.

The tasteful thickness of it- decent but not overwhelmingly resiny. Then again I've had it for a while. Really dry and bitter and those hops linger in your mouth if you let them.

Surprise, surprise, Tuatara makes an awesome beer. Just night and day when you compare this to something like Feral's Tusk- this is a legitimate rival to US DIPAs. Shows how close NZ is to the US and how far ahead of Aus it is with its IPAs.

The DIPA you want to take home to meet your mum. Brewed to perfection.

Serving type: bottle

05-17-2013 10:00:20 | More by danieelol

TheBadger0289

New Zealand (Aotearoa)

4.25/5  rDev +2.9%

05-15-2013 10:29:57 | More by TheBadger0289

CrazyDavros

Australia

3.6/5  rDev -12.8%
look: 3 | smell: 4 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.25 | overall: 3.75

Pours dark amber with a small head.
Very fruity aroma but also a lot of sweet clean malt. Some booze. Caramel, pine and resinous hops dominate.
Very aggressive flavours, with a big hoppy bitterness throughout. A fair bit of clean sweet malt as well, but the resinous, grapefruity hop bitterness wins out.
Nice moderate carbonation.
The bitterness seems to sharp and aggressive.

Serving type: bottle

05-14-2013 02:40:00 | More by CrazyDavros

biboergosum

Alberta (Canada)

4.09/5  rDev -1%
look: 3.75 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

650ml strange slope-shouldered bottle, with an eye-straining, obviously 3-D glasses requiring wraparound label. First wedding anniversary achieved and mostly celebrated, so now onto something in line with my favourite style of beer.

This beer pours a slightly hazy, thick glassy medium golden amber colour, with one finger of bubbly, loosely foamy dirty white head, which leaves a few streaks of meandering river lace around the glass as it quickly abates.

It smells of musty tropical fruit - pineapple, kiwi, papaya, and blood orange - leafy pine, and a touch of lemon. So, hops, and lots of 'em, though not really of the bitter sort, over a reserved grainy caramel malt, and a soft simmering booziness. The taste is a whole level more astringently bitter, as the well-muddled island fruit mixes further with the American standard orange and lemon juiciness, and the pine needles ramp up their game nicely. Before I forever wax on about the overdose of hops (and not bitterness, I can't stress that enough), there is a sturdy, if duly underappreciated gritty pale caramel and toffee malt backbone. And back to the hops - nah, I'd rather mention the fairly understated alcohol warming.

The bubbles are a wee bit fizzy (thanks Top Gear, tho I don't know why), the body an adequate medium weight, with a subtle hint of plain creaminess. It finishes on the sweet side, all that tropical fruit more or less neutered of its bitterness having that sort of effect.

So, as for that particular white elephant in the room - the purported 167 IBUs - I assume that they're well spread out over the whole course of this offering. And the hops, well the hops are everything as proclaimed, and well, that's enough about that. Maybe more virtual ink should be spilled over the rather well integrated, and equally elevated ABV. One double that is surely capable of trouble.

Serving type: bottle

05-11-2013 05:39:47 | More by biboergosum

IanSpindler

Alberta (Canada)

4.5/5  rDev +9%

05-10-2013 00:35:53 | More by IanSpindler

wordemupg

Alberta (Canada)

4.25/5  rDev +2.9%
look: 3.25 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

650ml bottle poured into tulip 8/5/13

A clear copper with just a few tiny bubbles popping up from here and there, just a thick soapy foam even after an angry pour and it quickly falls to a thin film leaving just a few polka dots for lace, looks pretty basic

S basic no longer, the nose tropical in a big way, passion-fruit, guava, pineapple, and tangerine work well, loving the Kiwi hops, a little melon and the faintest amount of smoke, Chinook perhaps? seems out of place perhaps I'm finally losing it, hint of pine and a caramel malt but its lopsided towards towards the hops

T pine resin come out a little stronger, some citrus rind and some hop candy, a little sweet but I'm loving it but not as much as the nose, slight herbal notes as it warms

M supposedly twice the IBU's a human can detect but still I didn't find it palate wrecking bitter but still has a nice bitter kick, medium bodied with more bubbles then I could see in the glass and very well concealed booze

O pretty happy with this one, big nose and other then the dead look I don't have much to complain about

What can I say? I'm a sucker for those South Pacific hops, great stuff and i just gotta wonder how long this one sat in a boat and still tastes this good. With a BB date of November, 13th, 2013 I'd guess this ones already 6 months old and could only imagine how a fresh bottle would treat me.

Serving type: bottle

05-09-2013 05:27:52 | More by wordemupg

dgilks

Australia

3.8/5  rDev -8%
look: 3.75 | smell: 4 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75

Clear amber colour with a small white head. Interesting citrus and floral hop aroma. A touch of caramel. Not bad. The flavour moves into something smoother with some malt and a moderate bitterness. Quite sweet but not bad. Medium body with moderate carbonation. A nice little AIPA. Decent hop flavour but overly sweet.

Serving type: on-tap

01-09-2013 09:22:10 | More by dgilks

StJamesGate

New York

4.29/5  rDev +3.9%
look: 3.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.5

Amber-straw with thin white froth.
Dank, floral, resiny, passionfruit - an insanely deep hop nose.
Tropical fruit jam with stress on passionfruit, plus lime sorbet and spicy white grape.
Musty white grapefruit finish and long catty bitter linger.
Medium to full, chewy, a bit of oil.

"Pacific Jade to bitter (70 IBU up front), then Pacific Jade, Nelson Sauvin, Simcoe, and Zythos late in the boil for Flavour and aroma. Then Nelson Sauvin for the first dry-hop, and Simcoe and Zythos for the second dry-hop. Calculated at 167 IBU."

Big, fruity, chewy IPA with plenty of bitterness. NS and Simcoe is a savage combination. Doesn't approach 137 IBUs and that's a good thing - stays very drinkable. Shone through at the end of a night of hoppy beers, so bonus points for that.

A festival of NZ hops and a proper hop bomb.

Serving type: bottle

12-17-2012 19:05:11 | More by StJamesGate

tbeckett

Ontario (Canada)

3.78/5  rDev -8.5%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

Half-Pint at Hop Garden in Wellington. ABV was at least 2% higher. From notes.

A - Poured with a slight haze and golden colour. Good carbonaiton, one finger of white head. Decent lace and a film of retention.

S - Tons of tropical fruits, pineapple, mango. Nice stuff.

T - Juicy tropical fruit, some booze, boozy pineapple. Tasty but booze note was a tad harsh.

M - Good carbonation, medium to full body, nice fruity and slightly bitter finish.

O/D - Tasty DIPA. Easy to drink compared to some American takes on the style. Good stuff.

Serving type: on-tap

10-19-2012 23:17:42 | More by tbeckett

lacqueredmouse

Australia

4.33/5  rDev +4.8%
look: 4 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

First up, apologies for the classification. At 5.5% ABV, this is struggling even to be a regular American IPA, let alone a double. But that's what the brewery classifies it as, what it was classified as at GABS, and (presumably) what the "double" in the name refers to. Fortunately, despite this anomaly, it's a very tasty little beer. On-tap at the GABS festival in Melbourne.

Pours a golden colour, quite clear with a solid body. Head is a yellowish, firm crest that leaves some patchy but reasonably solid lacing. Minimal carbonation noticeable.

Big passionfruit characters on the nose make this immediately bright and vibrant. This mingles with a deeper earthy tone that gives characters of tobacco. It's huge and fragrant and very robust. I love it.

Bight passionfruit on the front palate as well, giving an almost biting, seedy clarity. This becomes a more herbal hop character, with a bit of earthiness but a lighter weight overall. The weight lifts off again towards the back, leaving a crisp, perfectly clear finish, with a slight biting almond nuttiness.

This is a beer that's big in flavour—despite falling outside what should technically constitute a DIPA, it makes an apologetic compensation by really blowing the hops up big.

Serving type: on-tap

08-07-2012 03:56:03 | More by lacqueredmouse