In the small and picturesque Victorian spa town of Buxton, some 30 miles southeast of Manchester, Buxton Brewery was founded in 2009 by Geoff and Rich. The desire to experiment was great from the get go and already in 2010 they started brewing 800 liter batches. Six years later, they moved to modern facilities and today they produce around 3500 liters per brew, 3 times per week.
Buxton is widely recognized as one of the world's best breweries. Various collaborative beers and the fact that they brew a lot for Swedish Omnipollo has made Buxton Brewery very popular here in Sweden, which is one of the brewery's largest export markets. Prior to the beer we'll be reviewing today I've been enjoying a few of their IPAs and the insanely tongue curling Gooseberry sour Trolltunga.
The IPA we'll be trying today is part of a series called LupulusX:
"Lupulus X is an experimental single hop program. Every beer has the same recipe, only the hop changes to deliver a distinctive flavour burst."
As they've been using mosaic hops for this one, I expect a quite complex profile with a lot of berry notes. Let's find out!
Buxton Brewery - LupulusX - Mosaic
Origin: Buxton, Derbyshire, UK
Brewery: Buxton Brewery
Style: IPA
ABV: 5.4%
Hops: Mosaic
440 ml can
Appearance: Hazy, golden orange.
Nose: Mango, tangerine, passion fruit.
Palate: Tropical, but a lot dryer / less sweet than the New England style IPAs. Besides the mango, tangerine, passion fruit from the nose, there is also yellow melon and grapefruit. Some blueberries as well, which is to expect from a single mosaic beer. Quite grassy and not very oily. The piney bitterness balances the tropical aromas well.
Finish: Floral, spicy and bitter.
Conclusion: A bit underwhelming but very drinkable modern IPA. Glad it wasn't a juicy New Englander at least (A trend I wish will die very soon). I'd say 3.8 out of 5 perfectly content hop cones.
Btw, this beer was bought with Bitcoin from the Dutch online beer store Hop Craft Beers: www.hopcraftbeers.com As there are not that many online beer stores accepting crypto, please support and consider this store next time you're thirsty!