Beer Review: Trial by Wombat (Thin Man Brewery)

Let me start off with apologizing a bit, I had planned to do daily posts this three-day weekend for me (Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday), and starting off with one on my Friday (Tuesday) night. Well, this was a much busier weekend than I had anticipated, and a lot of my time got sapped up and I didn’t quite get to hold fast to this plan. Thursday I had a meeting with Visit Hershey & Harrisburg PA; which I am super psyched about and can’t wait til I can spill the beans on some things. Last night, while waiting out my youngest daughter’s ballet class I was at Funck’s and had two wonderful New Trail beers (Cinnamon Sticky and Icicle Haze); then afterwards had dinner with my father at The Mill (in Hershey) and finally got to try the Haze Charmer which was followed up by us seeing the 9:30PM Jerry Seinfeld Stand-Up show at the Hershey Theater.

Of course this is all on top of running the house, getting girls to school, enjoying two beautiful days (and one dreary day) off, going to the library, reading, working on the behind-the-scenes stuff of the blog (analytics, programming, editing, marketing, etc.), and needless to say its quick to see how fast the time got sucked up.

But here I am. I did release a beer review yesterday – the latest big one from Boneshire Brew Works – Long Tongue Liar (Barrel Aged). I did also do a beer review Tuesday of Widowmaker; a DIPA from Fall River Brewing out in California. And recently, contributor to the blog – Let Us Drink Beer – gave us the lowdown on Variant Brewing Company out of Roswell Georgia. So have no fear, there is certainly at least new content, with always more on the way. (One nice thing you guys don’t have to worry about, I’m going to keep drinking, and drinking new stuff, so that just means a continuous stream of new beer reviews and such; just don’t tell my doctor how often I post.)

But, back to the beer at hand – Trial by Wombat; a New England IPA by Thin Man Brewery. I will admit this was a bit of an ‘impulse’ by while at Breski’s Beverage; and mainly due to the can label. I’m just glad the beer at least backed up my purchase and was worth it. Thin Man Brewery is a micro brewery out of Buffalo New York. According to Untappd they have 254 unique beers for a global rating of 3.88 (as of 3.7.20). They have no description or write-up on Untappd however, so I don’t have a whole lot more to tell you about them.

So lets see what I got myself into with this impulse beer purchase.

Beer: Trial By Wombat
Brewery: Thin Man Brewery
Style: IPA – New England
ABV: 7%
IBU: None listed
Untappd Description: Brewed with copious amounts of Australian Galaxy hops and flaked oats. Hazy AF with tons of peach, pineapple and orange.

This looks like it fits the bill for a New England IPA. Looks golden, light, hazy, bright yellow, orange juice like. This was bubbly on the pour, with a great golden coloring immediately and billowed out into a beautiful foamy fluffy head. Nice interspersed and different bubbles in the fluffy head; also leaves wonderful lacing down the glass. Looks full bodied, neither thin or watery.

Aroma is a wonderful floral and bright hoppy smell; typical for New England IPAs. Theres nothing too distinguishable here as far as aroma goes, the nose on this is pretty much the same as most New England IPAs even incorporating the same hops (Galaxy) as a lot of NE-IPAs. There is notes of peach, orange, tangerine, fruits of that nature; perhaps some mango and pineapple. Typical for most NE-IPAs.

This is a dank and hazy juicy New England IPA. What you imagine your gonna get when you pour it – is what you get. Next to no bitterness, all juicy, “haze craze”, fluffy, pillowy, easy drinking, New England IPA. You get some floral and fruity notes to this – primarily peach, orange, tangerine, a bit of pineapple and mango, but its mostly peach and orange. The flaky oats makes this dank and hazy and dense and gives it the mouthfeel, its certainly not watery or thin and its not cloying. No bad espers or aftertaste or off flavors. This is a very enjoyable, easy drinking beer, nothing blowing your mind away, but goes out there and does exactly what its made to do. And thats probably the best thing for a beer, in my opinion, just deliver, just be good, be drinkable, be enjoyable, and you’re good, you’re set. This beer accomplishes that, wonderfully.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 4.07 (as of 3.7.20)

As always, to end the post, I’m gonna go through my spiel of telling you guys to check out our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, as well as liking us directly here on the blog. Also, be sure to check out some of our recent posts: Furious IPA, Chocolate Confidential, Long Tongue Liar, Widowmaker, Sneak Peak of Rubber Soul, Daebak, and Sunshine and Opportunity.

(Oh, and PS note, for those wondering about the books behind the beers: The Wander Society by Keri Smith, and The Catalogue of Ship Wrecked Books by Edward Wilson-Lee.)

Cheers everyone, thanks for reading!

-B. Kline