Spring foliage.

The Specs: Driftwood Brewery’s White Bark Witbier
5 per cent ABV, 650mL, regular series

Sunlight? Daylight savings time? Bah. You can tell it’s spring because all I want to do is drink wheat-based beers.

Driftwood’s offering actually felt like something my cider-drinking partner in reviewing might enjoy (if she didn’t hate all beer) — or at least, like something a very occasional cider drinker could almost mistake for same.

Light, quite dry and with a tartness that’s more Granny Smith apple than traditional orange to my tastebuds, White Bark’s not a particularly loud offering in this beer style. The coriander here is fairly subdued, and while there’s brightness and sharpness here like I said, it doesn’t remind me of orange, particularly. It’s also a very short sip, if you know what I mean — while some beers linger on your tongue long after you’ve taken a drink, White Bark is content to get gone pretty quickly.

The plus here is it’s easy to drink this stuff without feeling weighed down by the taste — something that can be a plus in a warm-weather beer, and I might like more when it’s really scorching in the summer — but compared to the other Driftwood offerings I’ve tasted  this one seemed a little subdued. I mean, Fat Tug’s basically a two-pint guitar solo. White Bark is more backyard barbecue playlist. Not bad, certainly, but not quite what I expected.

Wow, I really short-poured myself on this mug, didn’t I?

The Specs: Driftwood Brewery (Victoria, B.C.), Fat Tug IPA
7 per cent ABV, 650mL, regular series

Turns out, there’s a down side to becoming less of a dumb baby beer fan running around the liquor store grabbing bottles at random. At some point, it becomes impossible to ignore The Consensus — you know, those opinions of more seasoned craft drinkers repeated in so many Untappd reviews, blog posts, and friendly conversations that one can’t help but accept them as gospel.

And when it comes to Fat Tug, The Consensus is pretty darn devoted. Chances are, if you’re a seasoned beer drinker who likes IPAs, you already have an opinion on this one, and it’s probably fairly positive

I’ve had it described to me as B.C.’s best IPA, and a cursory Google turns up rapt reviews from across the country.

In the face of such praise I did the only natural thing — develop an intense paranoia that I would hate this beer.

Longtime blog readers already know about my deep-seated hops ambivalence. That I’m even drinking and sort of enjoying some IPAs these days is a shock, after years of thinking your average India Pale tasted like a pine cone, and not in a good way.

Fat Tug pours a pretty gold and smells mostly of grapefruit off the top. And, after a couple sips, I breathed a sigh of relief, because this beer does exactly what it promises to.

There’s a very juicy, grapefruit start, which slowly levels off into a lingering bitterness. Driftwood claims mango and melon flavours as well, but it’s really grapefruit’s show. I appreciate how controlled the bitterness is here, never overwhelming your palate to the point where you miss the upfront flavours.

It’s an IPA, but it’s an IPA I might conceivably drink again, under the right circumstances. For this style, that’s a victory.

(I’ll also note for the record I like this stuff a heck of a lot more than another of Driftwood’s hoppy offerings, New Growth Pale Ale, which I attempted to review back in January but just couldn’t work up the momentum to write about. Objectively it’s a pretty good beer, but I shouldn’t have to talk myself into appreciating something, you know?)