"Conn=cted" Oatmeal IPA

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Thanks to Henry Jarrett from Untappd for the photo, somehow the best there was.

 

Hello and welcome back to Booze Reviews! I come to you today with a beer that has a frankly stupid name, “Conn=cted”, created in a collaboration between Beer 52 and O Brothers Brewing, from County Wicklow, Ireland.

Whilst these collaboration beers are great in allowing small breweries to create small batches knowing that all the product will sell at the end, they do create some issues for me, the reviewer. For the last three beers, they are barely mentioned on the internet at all, only being found on Beer 52’s own website, and on Untappd, a website full of people who do not understand how to take good photographs of the beers they are drinking (honestly some of those photos are hilariously bad; half of them don’t even have the entire can or bottle in the shot, and the others will have their feet or their partner or their dirty kitchen in the background), and leave helpful reviews like “alright” and “nice beer”. These beers are not even included on their brewery’s websites, likely because there is no way to purchase them without subscribing to another company’s service.

O Brothers Brewing, founded by three brothers in 2014, proudly state that their beers are a celebration of all things Irish, working with Irish farmers, food producers, brewing experts and artists during the creation of their beers. As stated above, this beer is another collaboration beer, and because I know this I will assume that the name was likely suggested by Beer 52, as it is a completely different style to O Brothers other beers, that have cool names like “The Dreamcatcher”, “The Chancer”, “The Sinner” and “The Nightcrawler”. When compared to the above names, “Conn=cted” sounds somewhat ridiculous. And yes, I haven’t been repeatedly making a mistake by including the punctuation in the name, they really did replace the “E” with an equal sign.

So, what’s the verdict on this beer? It’s not actually that bad. I don’t know if this is me starting to like IPA style beers more (or if my tastebuds are simply giving in after drinking enough of this style of beer) but I do kind of like this beer. It’s got a strong citrus taste to it after a second or two in the mouth, that ends with a nice bitter note, creating an overall taste of grapefruit in the mouth. It has a very soft mouthfeel, making very easy to drink, but at 6%, it is the strongest beer that I was sent, and I think the strongest beer that I have ever had. I have actually been absentmindedly sipping at it whilst writing this, which probably means that I don’t dislike it. Would I get it again? Yes I would. Which is annoying, as I can’t buy this beer as it is only available with this subscription. Maybe I’ll find something else like it someday.

 

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