Switchback Brewing is located in Burlington, Vermont, and offers several core beers with a range of specialties including its DIPA Cat series of double IPAs that highlight a single hop variety. Switchback beers are available throughout Vermont and New England, and the company sent me samples of three of its beers a short while back. Let’s check them out!

Karsten Premium Lager

Switchback’s year-round lager is 5.1% ABV with 15 IBUs, and lagered for six weeks before release. The brewery notes on its site that all of its beers are unfiltered and naturally conditioned when packaged, which basically means “bottle conditioned” (even if in cans) with the yeast, so I expect Karsten is no exception.

From the press release I’d posted, here’s a blurb about the beer from the brewery:

Karsten Lager is crisp, clean and expertly crafted. It features Switchback’s delicious malt signature, balanced by noble hops with just a hint of sweetness. Modest to the bone despite the skill it takes to make, this beer is made for drinking not crowing about. A beer big on details but not boastful about them.

Appearance: Pale gold, with an unfiltered lager look, good rocky-lacy white head.

Smell: Grainy and bready (more bread dough than baked bread), with notes of raw wheat, a hint of sourdough, some straw-like hops. Quite light.

Taste: Crisp light later with notes of flour/cracked wheat and a nice bitterness to give it a good snap. Good graininess, slightly sweet, a hint of minerality, and a moreish quality to keep me sipping.

Mouthfeel: Light-bodied, perhaps a touch watery, but it has a crisp finish.

Overall: It’s a nice lager, going in an American light lager direction for me.

Wai-iti Cat Double IPA

The brewery notes this beer (and presumably the others in the DIPA Cat series as well) is all-grain with no added sugar; for many double IPA recipes, adding sugar to boost strength without adding body is a common technique, so achieving the 9.1% ABV strength with only the grain bill could potentially lead to heavier mouthfeel akin to a barleywine.

I didn’t really find that here however. Wai-iti Cat is brewed with (as you’d expect) Wai-iti hops, from New Zealand, typically known for lime/citrus and stone fruit characteristics. The description:

Take a thrilling leap with Wai-iti Cat! Meaning “little-water” in Maori, this New Zealand hop jumps headfirst into exhilarating notes of pink pineapple and sweet Galia melon. An extreme 9.1% ABV with a drop of tart sweetness that rebounds quick and fades away.

Appearance: Coppery gold color with a haze. Big, thick off-white head.

Smell: There’s a rich fruit note in the aroma that’s fleshy with some tropical notes, with some sweet orange, candied mango, and probably melon. Hints of sweetly-floral alcohol esters.

Taste: Candied pineapple and sweet orange; like in the aroma, I’d say it’s a richly fruity flavor with a bit of cantaloupe-like melon, and pineapple upside down cake. Alcohol contributes to the sweetness, and there’s a rich malt body that’s almost cakey. It’s not too bitter, but the hop bitterness is there.

Mouthfeel: Medium-full body with a creamy sweetness that’s going into the finish.

Overall: Really nice fruit character here with good levels of sweet and a mellow bitterness.

Roasted Red Ale

My own Platonic ideal of an amber/red ale style always has me approaching modern and/or hoppy reds with an initial skepticism as I’ve found a real hit-or-miss with roasty red malt and hop combinations. Same with approaching this Roasted Red for the first time, but I was pleasantly surprised that this drank more to my expectations and it’s a really nice seasonal.

It’s 5.6% ABV with 50 IBUs and the website has a longer description about it:

Our Roasted Red Ale is a deep mahogany-red colored ale. Its flavor leads with a rich caramel maltiness balanced with a bold hop signature, and followed by a delicate cocoa roasted finish. When selecting the hop varieties to complement our flagship Switchback Ale, we discovered the then new variety of hops called Amarillo. Not the right hop for our Ale, we decided to feature it in our next beer. The pungent citrus and flowery aromas of Amarillo demand a big malt character for balance. We use dark caramel malts to provide an intense malt profile, with a touch of roast malt to cleanse the palate of the inherent sweetness of red ales. To create hop complexity, we add a bit of Simcoe hops to the Amarillo for kettle additions and dry-hopping.

Appearance: Deep dark orange (copper) color, unfiltered (translucent), creamy off-white or almost tan colored head.

Smell: Lightly caramelly malts with a hint of dark bread, with floral hoppiness—reminds me of wildflowers, or a grassy meadow after a rain. Clean, lightly toasty.

Taste: There is a light roastiness in the flavor, a bit of a medium-light roast coffee character, with bready malts and and earthy hop bitterness that’s got some sweet citrus and green strawberry. Not as hoppy as I’d been expecting which lets the malts come out more with a nice flavor that’s balanced.

Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied and quite smooth with a clean finish.

Overall: It hits what I want out of an amber/red ale with good balance and restraint all around.