Siren Craft

Siren Craft –  I Love You Honey Bunny (330ml, 6.3% ABV)

For a brewery that’s only existed since 2012, Siren Craft of Berkshire have done pretty well for themselves. Named the best brewery in England, and one of the best in the world, they’ve not rested on their laurels either, with a bewildering array of beers in their arsenal. They display the kind of restless invention that puts me in mind of Brewdog.

Named for the only line of dialogue in Pulp Fiction that doesn’t include a swearword, I Love You Honey Bunny is some kind of IPA / smoothie / honey ale hybrid. Siren Craft are one of those breweries for whom categories are pretty much meaningless. The only way to judge it is to get it down your neck.

ILYHB pours a hazy yellow, a bit like a wheat beer, with an aroma of fresh, zingy US hops. And yes, it has the hop overload of an American IPA – grapefruit, pineapple and pine – but there’s no harshness and a noticeably smooth character. Definitely less of the ‘great vengeance and furious anger’ and more of a ‘foot massage’.

The body is good for a beer of this style, too – nothing thin about it. But really, it’s all about the hops, which are so potent they exhibit a kind of fizz that has nothing to do with carbonation and leave a tingling sherbety aftertaste. Traditional, it certainly ain’t, but it tastes fabulous.

Given the glowing orange colour and the jaw-dropping flavour, maybe the mystery is solved: that’s what the briefcase contained.

Written by Richard Salsbury
www.richardsalsbury.com