Chinook Smash
Brewery: Karoo Brewing
Town: Paarl
Style: Single malt, single hop pale ale
Color: unfiltered, amber
Head: white, dense
Nose: sweetly hoppy
Body: medium, medium carbonation
Palate: a bit too balanced, bland
Finish: clean
Served: from a bottle bought at the brewery
Impression: Loved the Karoo beers when in Kruger so made a special trip to the brewery. I knew most of the beers from our Safari trip but there were a few single hop varietal brews mostly available in bottles and this one was brewed with Southern Passion hops grown in South Africa. I liked the Azacca Smash on tap at the brewery so bought a bottle of both the Passion Smash and Chinook Smash to sample later. Chinook hops are noted as one of the more bitter hops so had saved this one of the Smash series for last only to find it lacking. Not only was it not the most bitter of the lot, it was the most bland. I may have had a bad bottle but it was bought at the brewery so it’s hard to say. At any rate, I thought the Smash series of beer was interesting but not nearly as much as Karoo’s other high hop entries, The Jackal in particular.
How about another South African craft beer?
