We promised early on to bring back todays’ beer year after year because we echo BA reviews like this: “If you’re not blown away by your first sip of this, then I don’t know what to say.”

See Crux’s Half Hitch Double IPA is one of those beers Pacific Northwest hopheads never get tired of — Going to a bbq? Bring a six-pack of Hitch. SeaHawks game? Six-pack of Hitch. Planning a day on the couch? Six-pack of Hitch.  

I mean after 5 years and nearly 24,000 ratings later, it holds strong at 4.09 on UT and boasts an exceptional 4.20 on BA! If that’s not habit forming, we don’t know what is.

There’s no mystery as to how Crux built such an avid following for this 9.5% ABV, 80 IBU monster. It’s boozy, sure, but it’s the multi-tiered Mosaic Hop flavors that take center stage and dazzle the palate. This beer was one of the first to jump on the Mosaic Hop craze back in the day but it remains at the top of the heap all these years later.

The first sip is juicy peach and sweet basil, morphing into a bounty of tangerine zest, guava, and cantaloupe. A barrage of bitterness interrupts the fruit fest with notes of fresh cut grass. Resinous, piney hop oils stick around on the tongue like evergreen sap. A restrained malt backbone allows the unhinged hop flavors to run rampant on the palate, expertly cloaking the muscled up ABV.

So if you’ve never had a a can of Hitch, you have a huge hole in your PNW hop catalogue and you owe it to your fridge to change that. (As well as any craft friendly adult who has access to your fridge.)

Rated 4.20 on BeerAdvocate; 4.05 on Untappd

Packaged On November 16th, 2018