Episode Notes

It’s the Two Minute Beer Review!

I’m Andrew Burkum and it’s that time of the week again where we pick a bottle from that massive craft brew aisle hoping to find a hidden treasure.

This week we’re going to take a look at Only Slightly Exaggerated IPA by Deschutes Brewery in Portland, Oregon. Is this one exaggerated enough to make a statement? Let’s find out!

Only Slightly Exaggerated pours very cloudy with tons of visible particles. It follows this up with the smell of tropical fruit, peach and gummy bears. Smells like a pretty typical hazy IPA to me. But what about the taste? On the website, Deschutes describes the beer as “A collaboration with Travel Oregon that captures the magic of Oregon like a whimsical fairy tale in a bottle. Explore a realm of unreal splendor, where tropical hops bloom amidst evergreen rainforests and light flavors of coconut come tumbling down clear alpine streams, descending into the dreamy depths of citrus zest.” For all that description, I found Only Slightly Exaggerated to be pretty mild in flavor. There’s good bitterness right up front, working its way around to the sides and the back of my tongue. I mostly get the tropical fruit, but I do get a nice hint of those piney hops that are too frequently missing from modern, popular juicy IPAs. This is an important factor in making the beer taste like a representation of Oregon, so major points go to Deschutes for executing on this flavor profile. On the back end there’s that peach that I was smelling as well as a little bit of pear. The flavor doesn’t hang around too long after the swallow, but it does leave me wanting another sip! I do feel like the beer is just a bit more energetic on the front end than on the back end, but maybe that’s just to represent the fact that recreational marijuana has been legal in Oregon for a lot longer than in most places in the United States.

I like this beer. Its unpretentious but it’s just interesting enough to keep me coming back for more. It’s the kind of beer that I’d love to have six pack of to last me through a nice summer afternoon among the Oregon evergreens. And at a 6.0% Alcohol by Volume, as long as I paced myself I’d still be able to walk to my tent at the end of the day. Verdict? Two Minute Beer Review Approved!

Well that’s all for this week, but I hope you’ll join me next week as I take a look at another great craft brew. Will we uncover another hidden treasure that we’ve been missing all along? We’ll find out next week! Look for links to this week’s beer and brewery in the show notes.

Don’t forget to let me know what you’re drinking and what you’re thinking about the show. Tweet me @2minutebeer with the number two or drop me an email at [email protected]. And if you’re listening to the show on your favorite podcast app, be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode and leave a review to help other people find the show. You can also support us with a small donation on our Patreon—there’s a link in the show notes.

That’s all for now, but I’ll see you next week as we continue on our quest to taste all the beer!

Have you supported the Phoenix Creative Collective and the Phoenix Podcast Network through Patreon yet? It's easy, just click here

Send questions, comments and recommendations to [email protected]

Music: River Meditation by Jason Shaw used under Creative Commons License

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/

Find out more at https://the-two-minute-beer-review.pinecast.co

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.