Last week I wrote about a treat provided to me by an acquaintance recently returned from Vermont (read here). Well, Heady Topper was not their only surprise for me. They also brought back a bottle from Hill Farmstead Brewery, the Greensboro, Vermont brewery who in a short five years have become known as one of the best breweries in North America. You can imagine the double delight of getting two beer I normally would have no hope of acquiring.

My friend brought back their Susan IPA in a large format swing-top bottle. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, beyond a strong likelihood that it would be quite well made.

I pours light orange with a noted haze. The head is thick and tight with moon-like craters along the sruface. I immediately detect a big fresh citrus and pine aroma softened by fruit and a delicate soft honey malt.

In the sip I first get a delicate sweetness built on top of a surprisingly light body. I get some clover honey, red berry and soft grassy malt. The middle opens up a bright citrus to accent the initial fruitiness. The final bitterness takes a while to build in the linger, but it just keeps coming. Sharp yet not too tangy, with pine, grapefruit and a soft earth character. Some resin notes linger under the surface. Throughout the body stays quite light and results in a refreshing finish.

Susan is a subtle, refreshing, yin-yang type of IPA. It has lots of fruity flavour and aroma which nicely balances the substantial but not overdone hop biterness. A lovely beer that lives up to the brewery’s reputation. It is superb in its understated qualities, finding a way to hit just the right notes with nothing out of balance.

The only shortcoming is that I only received one bottle and have no plane ticket (yet) to Vermont.