Club Tropicana
Brewery: Rocket Brewing
Type: American Pale Ale
Alcohol: 5%
Country: Denmark
Rocket Brewing Co. is one of the newest breweries in Denmark. Their beer has only been on the market for a few months now, and already it's in high demand and forced them to up their production. I myself have tried twice now to procure these elusive brews on my last two trips to Copenhagen. Now thanks to some shadowy connections and back room deals I have all four of Rocket Brewing's premiere lineup. Today on Rocket week we have Club Tropicana Pale Ale. This is Rocket's hoppy pale ale designed to chase away the Danish winter blues and take you back to summer...in the 80's judging by the label. The label is an ode to the 80', with wild colors, pink flamingos, and cassette tapes. One of my favorite pale ales in recent memory is Ugly Duck's Miami Vice, another tribute to the era of white jackets and shoulder pads. Excited to see if this is a trend in awesome tasting throwback beers. All the bottles contain a captain's log on the side of bottle. I shall place that on-screen for you now sir.
Captain's Log: There’s a place in space where drinks are free. It’s a place where Wham is still in fashion, where cutoff shorts are the thing and flamingos are the favorite pet. It’s a place where it says Ray-Ban on the sunglasses and the welcome sign is bent in neon: Welcome to Club Tropicana.
Pours out a beautiful orangish with a great big fluffy white head. If nothing else it's a beautiful beer. The smell I expected was a tropical riot, but instead it's more like a peaceful demonstration. There are some tropical fruit tones. Citra stone fruits and general fruit tones mix with a maltiness and actually a bit of yeast notes. The beer is fermented with a british ale yeast to increase fruity flavors in the beer. The downside is it doesn't seem to have dropped out all that well, and a bit of yeastiness is apparent in both the aroma and the taste. the taste was a bit puzzling, as there is not a lot of tropical in this tropicana. Some citrus hoppiness...sure...hints of peach...but no goddamn pink flamingo in ray bans riding a mango to the moon! Ok I might have gotten a little carried away in my expectations there. it's still a nice pale ale with a good deal of maltiness coming through and a low smooth drinkable body. A nice round bitterness but takin down a bit by the hints of yeast in the aftertaste. Maybe I gotta a particularly yeasty bottle. I was hoping for a free rocket ride to planet passion fruit, but I can settle for a nicely balanced pale ale. I'll stop back to Club Tropicana in the future and see if they bounce those yeasty riff-raff out. Then maybe I can bump the score up a bit.
