heavyseas-tropicannonBrewery – Heavy Seas
Beer – Tropicannon
Style – Fruited IPA
ABV – 7.25%
IBUs – 45

Our brand new citrus IPA is exploding with bright citrus aroma and flavor. Creating an exciting new variation on our flagship Loose Cannon, TropiCannon clocks in at the same 7.25%ABV as it’s cousin, but packs a full blast of blood orange, grapefruit, mango and lemon flavor. We’ve downplayed some of Loose Cannon’s piney-ness and amped up the citrus by swapping Centennial and Palisade hops for Amarillo and even more Simcoe. We’ve introduced dried grapefruit, orange and lemon peel in the brewing process and added mango, blood orange and more grapefruit post-fermentation.

I can only assume that you, being a craft beer fan, have heard of this beer.  You’ve probably had this beer, too, at some point.  The whole fruited IPA trend is hard to get away from, and if you live anywhere that Heavy Seas is on the shelf – this fruited IPA is one to get in a glass as soon as you can.

But how’d Tropicannon happen in the first place?

Heavy Seas was watching the fruited IPA trend pretty closely.  Their flagship beer is Loose Canon, a really great IPA, and if they could do something that captured the trend set by Ballast Point, while still using their IPA which captures so much of their sales – why not?  It didn’t need to be something they made a ton of, just a fun experiment.

During one creative meeting about this new beer General Manager Pat Helsel randomly blurted out the name – “Tropicannon?”  I’ve been told that Pat isn’t typically involved in the creative side of things, so when he blurts out the perfect name, almost like he had been waiting for that moment his entire life, it cemented it forever.

As a brewery, though, you have fears about a name.  This one involved some Orange Juice.  You might have heard of a certain Orange Juice maker with a similar name.  The brewery went back and forth on whether or not the idea would get them into trouble with this MASSIVE company.  But at the end of the day, this was a small deal… just a quick one-off beer… I mean, how long can a trend of fruited IPAs last?  And how many people are really going to care?  Heck, even if the Orange Juice guys throw a fit… any press is good press… right?  The name was final, and the beer was brewed.

The beer was released in April of 2016, and Orange Juice has no idea that it even exists.  Craft Beer fans are happy, Heavy Seas is happy.  All is good.

As the summer starts winding down, though, the beer becomes harder and harder to find for its fans.  This was, after all, just a random one-off beer.  People were thirsty.  They started firing off emails, demanding to know where they could get this beer.  The were loud, they wanted it back, and they wanted more of it.

Heavy Seas heard them, and they listened.  This beer needed to come back, but when it did it needed to be a year round offering.  It was clear that this “trend” of fruited IPAs was a little more than anyone thought that it would be.

My Thoughts On Heavy Seas Tropicannon

This beer is bright, clear orange in the glass, with a foamy white head on top.

It’s aromas are all about the fruit.  There is a ton of Orange, Grapefruit and lemony aromas that swirl around as you get close to the glass.

Flavor is another full layer of fruity goodness.  Bitter Orange Peel leads into a mango, lemon, grapefruit party.  It’s crisp, clean, refreshing.  It’s exactly what you might want as the weather starts to warm up.

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