The Elephant in the Can
McMenamins pubs and restaurants are as ubiquitous in the Northwest as they are ridiculed. It’s the sort of place you take your parents. They’ll love the quirky vibes and the food is cheap. The service is almost universally terrible – the number of times I’ve received the wrong the beer. And the beer has long been a joke among the beer nerd set.
It’s true, most of their standard brews haven’t changed much since their conception in the mid-nineties, but McMenamins owns a dozen different breweries, and each puts out it’s own small batch creations. If you’re willing to look past the tired fruity wheats, you might find a hidden gem.
Captain Neon’s Mango Double IPA was brewed out at Edgefield – the largest of the McMenamins estates. The beer features all the big name hops – Amarillo, Citra, Mosaic – and over six hundred pounds of pureed mango. At 9.16% ABV, Captain Neon is a tropical fruity, pulpy beer.
As haze is all the rage, the beer was left unfiltered, so you can almost chew the fruit. A big punch of mango greets you in the nose, followed by a smattering of earthier hop notes. It’s tangy and a little tart on the tongue. The fruity sweetness is cut through with a bitter piney flavor from the hops. It’s weighty, but you’d never guess it’s nine percent, but that seems to be the way of these things. Unexpected from a McMenamins, but super tasty.