Yet another highly anticipated IPA release from TrimTab Brewing‘s Light Visions Series has just hit limited Southern markets. As a result, hop heads couldn’t be more excited. The name given is Helix Rising, a double dry-hopped hazy double IPA. TrimTab continues to do exciting things in the Southern IPA game, and this DIPA brewed with Chinook, Zythos, Simcoe and Simcoe Lupulin powder is a truly unique and welcomed addition to their increasingly successful repertoire.

The Beer

Helix Rising is described on the can as a “Spirit of Quality”, a phrase leading people to this beer with high expectations. According to TrimTab, they started with “a complex grain bill consisting of clean pilsner, copious amounts of sticky oats and a touch of flaked wheat to really tie the body together”. My first experience with this beer was poured from a can that was canned the same morning, three days before its release to the public.

Helix pours a lightly pale, completely hazy golden yellow, flecked with an orange hue. A soft, white head of foam settles slowly as it falls back into the beer, leaving small patterns of lace.

Tons of pineapple and hints of mango on the nose. It is fresh and therefore still green, and as a result will bloom nicely. A piney hop presence balances out the profile; the characteristics of those Zythos hops comes out strong with subtle background aromas of tangerine and grapefruit.

I find it very important to a good IPA when you can pick out particular hop characteristics in the beer. Chinook hops really emerge in the flavors and mellow out the strong pineapple backbone. Complimenting this, you get a medium spice intensity and a good balance of piney, pithy hops. With a few weeks expect it to mellow out. However, with the potency of fresh pineapple, melon and overripe mango serving the backbone, it will come full circle really nicely.

Smooth, dank, medium carbonation. Soft mouthfeel and mildly warm finish. A very drinkable 8% ABV beer.

Steady as it Goes…

This release joins other Light Visions releases such as Mosaic Singularity, 006 and various Dreams of Oblivion Sour IPAs as the newest in an ever-growing experimental series.

Feature image courtesy of TrimTab Brewing

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