You gotta love the label of Sweetwater’s latest limited release, the Johnny Hash double IPA. There’s a cartoonish Johnny Cash-looking dude holding a guitar and giving us the finger—how do you not buy that beer? Fork over the cash for the Johnny Hash and you’ll be rewarded with a double IPA that lives up to its “dank” promises.
Johnny Hash pours kind of pale for a double IPA, but it smells like a bushel of citrus has been jammed up your nostrils. The nose is sweet, floral, with heavy grapefruit. I can’t emphasize that enough. Heavy grapefruit.
The beer has a highly carbonated, effervescent mouthfeel and it’s bitter as hell, but there’s an undeniable, almost candied sweetness to the beer as well. Don’t mistake these two qualities for balance. If you’re looking for balance, look elsewhere. That’s not Johnny Hash’s bag of tricks. But is any double IPA balanced? It’s possible that we in the modern world put too much emphasis on “finding balance.” Great things are rarely balanced. The Leaning Tower of Pisa. Dolly Parton. Instead of balance, Johnny Hash delivers an over the top citrus bomb. It’s like drinking 8.5% ABV grapefruit juice. If I had to describe the beer in a single word, it would be “juicy.”