Boulder Hazed & Infused Pale Ale

Boulder Hazed & Infused Pale Ale.

5% ABV. Boulder Beer, Denver, CO.

The Boulder Beer Company, now out of Denver, apparently, has been distributed in Minnesota for as long as I can remember, and I’ve always been happy to show them my support. I put a keg of Mojo IPA on at Acadia as recently as the summer of 2019. Then, they went away, and returned under a new distributor with all-new, all-boring trade dress. I’ll merely say that it’s the most drastic rebranding I’ve ever seen, and not in a good way. Gone away is color, style, and imagination, in comes black and white landscape photography and the most understated typeface imaginable. Sure, why not.

So, I bought the variety pack, which included one new beer, Bubbly By Nature, since reviewed, and three that I was already familiar with, two of them, Mojo and Shake, already here in the Nib. The last one, Hazed & Infused, not only hasn’t been reviewed here, I apparently never took notes on it at all. How is this possible?

I remember when this beer was introduced in 2002 and I remember tapping it at the Blue Nile. Back then, I took notes on every beer I tapped and shared them on BeerAdvocate & RateBeer, until I started this blog. It’s not on either one of them. The closest I could find was something called Hazed Hoppy Session Ale. A beer with this named is said to have been introduced in 2017. What gives? Oh, well, let’s write new notes. 

Hazy (as per the craze these days, although this beer preceded that by more than a decade), bright golden toned, small white head. 

In the nose: bold citrus zest expression, orange, lemon, grapefruit. Quite nice.

In the mouth: more bold, more citrus. Minor bitterness, mellow malt. Hop flavors ride high, lasting through the long finish. Medium bodied, easy drinking, refreshing, and highly likable. 

Still curious, I investigated further Hazed Hoppy Session is a renaming of Hazed & Infused. To position it for marketing purposes and tie-in to the trend of session ales? And now that unfiltered, dry-Hopped IPAs are all the rage? Yep.

I would share those old notes, but I can’t remember my password right now...