Recently, Elysian Brewing hosted a virtual tasting of its new Juice Dust IPA, the “juicy” variant in the Space Dust IPA family. Ahead of the tasting, the company sent out tasting kits which included the beer (a six pack plus an extra can each of Juice Dust and Space Dust) and a shirt, all packed in a Yeti Loadout Gobox 15 gear case, branded with Elysian’s Juice Dust logo.

You might remember that I’d received cans of Juice Dust after it had just come out; this media kit supplemented these cans and more. Frankly, it reminded me of some of the Shock Top media kits I’d received a decade ago, as far as the somewhat elaborate gear and setup.

This was the fourth or fifth virtual, Zoom-based tasting event the brewery has hosted which I’ve attended, and it followed basically the same format. I joined a number of other media folk along with several people from Elysian (including Auggie Katzer, Chris Murakami, Brittney Hicks, and Matt Draper). The Elysian crew led us along a side-by-side tasting of Space Dust and Juice Dust, talking about the origin and story behind Juice Dust, and holding a general Q&A.

Before I go any further, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Jeff Alworth’s post on Juice Dust where he absolutely excoriated the name and the marketing behind the beer. While an entertaining read, I don’t have the same reaction towards it that he did; I’m fine with the name as part of the “Space Dust” family keying off the “Dust” part—Elysian released Dank Dust two years ago—which is reminiscent of Deschutes Brewery’s “Fresh” family playing off “Fresh Squeezed.”

And the marketing is, well, marketing. The Juice Dust description is a bit, er, fanciful:

Corkscrewing through the obsidian darkness of outer space, Juice Dust is powered by a fathomless palate squeeze of orange and citrus. This Space Dust alter ego wrings out vibrant bursts of juicy, fruit-driven flavor to help illuminate all your interstellar journeys.

But it’s hardly the worst marketing-driven beer description I’ve ever seen.

All right, let’s get back into some background from the tasting. Elysian has been working on the Space Dust brand over the past year or so, after the expansion with Dank Dust, and was brainstorming other “alter egos” (variants) that would fit in the Dust family. The question was asked, “If we did a juicy version of Space Dust, what would that look like?”

Apparently the first concept that hit the whiteboard was Tang, the powdered drink mix that became famous due to its inclusion and association with the U.S. space program. So there’s the “space” connection to the brand—literally powdered juice mix, so in that sense “Juice Dust” fits.

The brewers actually mixed Tang with Space Dust just to see how it could go. Apparently the taste was “not great” but aroma was awesome. So they focused on developing a similar experience without actually using Tang.

The final product uses the same hops as Space Dust—Chinook, Citra, and Amarillo—but the grain bill includes rolled oats at nearly 20% of the grist, and orange juice is added as well.

The purpose of the virtual tasting was to taste the beer, of course. Here are the notes I took while doing so (drinking both Juice and Space Dust):

Aroma gives orange zest and pith, with a touch of candied orange peel, and a bit of that spicy orange oil-like character. Taste has some similarly pithy bitterness that has a touch of that essential orange oil spiciness, and there’s a bit of hop burn — the hops were mostly late addition or dry hop.

Space Dust is still the benchmark standard of this series, a solid WC IPA with really good orange/citrus aromas and super solid bitterness and drinkability. With Juice Dust I do get some similar notes but the aroma goes more into that essential oil citrus/orange with more hop burniness, which translates into the flavor as well. I don’t get much “juice” in that regard. There’s more acidity to it and more floral character.

Juice Dust is on the market now, I believe everywhere you can also find Space Dust.