Sole Artisan Ales Citra Nerd: "Juicy For Days"

by Ryan Gerstel:

Sole Artisan Ales has been producing outstanding, high quality beer since its conception in 2015.

The Pittstown, PA microbrewery was founded by Head Brewer, Joe Percoco. Percoco's passion for quality beer took him from his farm in the Appalachian Mountains, to historic breweries across the pond in Europe to learn both new and traditional brewing techniques from adept Brew Masters.

Equipped with newfound brewing knowledge, Percoco returned to the states and created Sole Artisan Ales.
However, this isn't Percoco's first time brewing beer for a local mircrobrewer. He served as Head Brewer for Funk Brewing Company located in Emmaus, PA before his excursion in Europe. While with Funk, Percoco quickly made a name for himself among the local craft drinking community for his brewing techniques, particularly in his IPAs and farmhouse ales.

Joe Percoco via Joe Dolinsky at timesleader.com

Percoco has continued his fine work since conceiving Sole, as their beers have been received well and have generated well deserved attention from local craft beer publications.

Sole's specialty is IPAs. Of their current 14-beer lineup, seven are a mix of IPAs and Double IPAs. But their remaining lineup consists of a Belgian Farmhouse ale (another Percoco specialty), a Gose, a Maple Imperial Stout and a cream ale to add a touch of variety.

I've enjoyed their Green Life IPA and Clink! Pale Ale in the past. Each are unique representations of their respective styles. Green Life is a nice blend of a west and east coast style IPAs with plenty of pine and bitterness for the hop heads and a bit of citrus juiciness to add crushability while Clink! has the smooth mouth feel of a cream ale and the hoppy bite of a Pilsner.

Their newest beer, Citra Nerd, isn't concerned with being a hybrid between two styles. Instead, it accepts what it is: an extremely bright, tropical, and citrusy west coast style behemoth of a beer.

Here's how Sole described Citra Nerd on their website:

"Citra Nerd is a single-hopped take on what we think is our most perfectly designed IPA yet, Turbo Nerd. Brewed with Pils, Oats, and German Wheat and then dry hopped singularly and massively with Citra Hops. Citra boasts massive aromas and flavors of meyer lemon zest, mandarin juice, honeydew, and grapefruit, making this juicy juicy juicy juicy for days…"

I was fortunate enough to find Citra Nerd on tap at Mari's 6 Pac "N" More (which has an incredible selection of singles and six packs) in Reading, PA last weekend. I heard about this single hop double IPA from customers, and even our store's owner, for the last couple of weeks, so when I saw it on Mari's tap list, I had to try it.

Fresh out of the keg, Citra Nerd poured a glowing hazy gold with a finger of head. This brew was making my mouth water before I even laid a finger on it. 

The aroma was crisp, pungent and filled with bright citrus, grapefruit, pineapple and lemon zest. By this point, my mouth resembled Niagara Falls.

The taste was exactly what I expected, as a burst of lemon juice, pineapple and tropical flavors washed over my taste buds with a refreshing combination of zest and malt sweetness on the back end. The mouth feel was full and incredibly smooth for a 7.5 percent double IPA. Slight bitterness was present, but it was ultimately smothered by the tropical flavors.

I have to say, Citra Nerd lived up to the hype in a big way. It was every bit as tropical and juicy as I wanted it to be and then some. I'll go out on a limb and say that Citra Nerd and Nimble Giant are the two best PA-brewed IPAs that I've had.

If you're a fan of sweet and zesty west coast IPAs, then this will become your new obsession.

Clink, Sole and Mr. Percoco. Clink.

(Check out Ryan's review of Sierra Nevada's Oktoberfest!)