Hello again. It's been a minute, hasn't it?

Well I won't mess around, give some bullshit about how now I'm going to be posting here again, being active, etc. We all know how I am. But, I have been blind mixing the same shit for the past few months, and it's just getting old. So I figured, fuck it, lets try something different. And if I'm going to actually sit down and try to make something worth sharing, I might as well post the process.

Let's start with the recipe, itself.

DreamHaze ( an attempt at a fruity, tropical, hazy beer? )

• FA White Peach at 1.75%
• FA Kiwi at 2.5%
• TPA Pear at 2%
• FLV Pink Guava at 0.5%
• FLV Yakima Hops at 1.25%
• FLV Citrus Soda at 0.8%

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FLAVOR PROFILE IDEAS

So yeah, I've been doing a lot of blind mixing lately, just throwing fruit stuff together that I know will work. It's been fine, but I just have been bored of it for the last week. I obviously mess around with IPA profiles a lot, but I hardly post them. This was just an attempt to take some of the stuff that worked well from my IPA Smoke recipe, add a lot more juicy/tropical/fruit notes, and make something that would be reminiscent of a hazy IPA. I likely will change this overall profile as I mess with this more, we'll see.

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FLAVOR NOTES

FA White Peach / TPA Pear - if you know me, you know peach is my scapegoat for shitty flavor profiles. There are few that don't wreak havoc on my throat and respiratory system. However, my favorite peach-adjacent flavor, FA Armenia, would not work here at all. I don't want warmth or that caramelized/brown sugar note we get from that flavor. And with the tropical fruit idea I was going for, I felt that in a low enough percentage, a little added harshness might actually work. FA White Peach gives us a nice, bright top note that reminds me of peach ring candies, but maybe a bit more tart. The problem is this flavor is all top note, so I added a good bit of TPA Pear to fill it out and round out some of the residual harshness of the peach. I don't necessarily get Peach/Pear from this, I mainly get a nice amalgamation of tropical fruit that forces the peach flavor to really only come through on the exhale.

FA Kiwi / FLV Pink Guava - some crucial additions to any attempt at an IPA, in my opinion. The Pink Guava is there to add more bitterness and crisp bite to the profile and cut through all the sweetness that the top notes of peach/pear are imparting. This combination also plays nicely with the floral middle ground that we have from Yakima Hops. Now, with just Yakima Hops and Pink Guava, sure, that's fine as a suggestion of an IPA, but something about the addition of FA Kiwi gives a greater feel that we're tasting a tropical IPA that leans more on the fruity/sweet side. It's because FA Kiwi is akin to some sort of candied/dried kiwi. It's crisp and tart as hell, but not bitter or harsh. It's quite smooth and potent, easily the best kiwi flavor I've tried. I'm also using fruit profiles through this recipe that lean more to the "candy" side of the spectrum, because we're going for that hazy IPA vibe, and those tend to be more sweet than bitter.

FLV Yakima Hops / FLV Citrus Soda - I don't need to say much here. This is just a solid base for a profile that wants to lean on the side of beer. You can play around with the ratios/percentages here to give more floral notes. The Citrus Soda helps prevent too much of that earthy/floral bitterness from cutting through all of the flavors. So if you're trying to go for something a bit more "beer-y", pull back on the soda, add more of the hops. Easy.

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OVERALL TASTING NOTES

Fresh sip of cold water, clean the palate. The smell of this mix is honestly reminds me very much of a super fruity IPA, maybe that was mixed with some white peach juice? It smells pleasant. Something that, if I was just starting to vape and heard what the profile was supposed to be ( I probably wouldn't be too hyped on vaping a beer if I had just started vaping ) , then smelling the bottle would make me want to give it a go.

The journey of this one is quite fun. The inhale is really tart, super fruity, very heavy on the pink guava and kiwi notes. I love this about this first iteration of the recipe. The inhale is just like eating some sour gummy worms, if the flavor of those worms was simply called "tropical." The body of this is where we get some suggestions of floral/earth/beer. It's definitely not strong, but focusing on the flavors before the exhale is nothing specific, but it's smooth. The throat tickle from the peach starts to hit here, but it's adding to that pleasant inhale, giving more suggestion of actual sour. I guess I'm picking up on the pear notes here. It's just giving the whole experience some nice full bodied flavor at this point. And the exhale, that's almost all pink guava and peach. The throat hit is strong here, not in a "fuck I have the virus" coughing fit, but just almost what I remember the exhale of a cigarette to feel like.

TLDR? - inhale sour because kiwi and pink guava, pre-exhale is smooth and sweet and full bodied, exhale is peach and throat tickly.

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NOTES FOR FUTURE ATTEMPTS

I think my favorite thing about this mix is that I am starting to get closer to something I've been trying to create from scratch for a while now - pure tongue twitching sour. This inhale IS sour with no bullshit. It's not like FLV Sour Apple that makes you THINK it's sour but it's actually just sweet with a bit of green apple peel bitterness. It's not a flavor enhancer that may work as sour, but doesn't add anything else to the party. It's fucking sour that also brings some nice tropical flavor. I have a feeling its the kiwi/pink guava/white peach, and here's why. The Pink Guava is giving us that drying bitterness that you get from something like a Warhead, the Kiwi is providing the actual sour note while also giving a non descript fruit flavor, and the White Peach is giving that throat hit. It's wild, but a really fun experience.

For the future? I have half a mind to pull the beer idea entirely and try to turn this into some sort of boozy cocktail recipe. I think this fruit base would work beautifully with the right alcohol ( I'm thinking Tequila or maybe even some weird ass mimosa type idea? ) . But even here, as it stands, it does feel like a really fruity tropical haze IPA. I like this, but you know me, I try to keep it exciting, so I want to dive deeper into this sour discovery and see how far I can push it.

Either way, it's getting warm again, and this is a really refreshing, bright, and fruity mix that I think will pair nicely with a cocktail or ( obviously ) an IPA on a warm spring/summer night. I hope you dig it.