Crucial Taunt

I had been anticipating some beer from The Veil brewing for a while, after being turned onto them by BrewBokeh. Actually he made me aware of his buddy, The Veil’s head brewer. He was a brewer at Hill Farmstead and did some internships at Cantillon before opening this brewery. If that doesn’t set the expectations high, I’m not sure what would. Well my friend took a trip there and sent me some of their beer afterwards. It was mostly hoppy beer, which I love, but my real excitement is building for the beers they’ve placed in barrels après coolship!

Crucial Taunt was the first one we opened. This one struck us as a flagship beer for The Veil, so we decided to make our initial impression off of it. The beer poured really well. Nice and bright and clear with a great fluffy bright white head. I’ve read some descriptions of this beer giving off fruity hop aromas but I was hit with pine and juniper, which was not what I was expecting to smell. It was a wonderful surprise. The beer then had an acidic first sip, not sour, just acidic. It smoothed out to a really well balanced IPA hiding the alcohol of this double IPA at 8%. Then the beer finished dry, which rushed the next sip to my mouth. Overall a really nice beer. On the inside I was a little jealous I had to share it.