Belt’s Beer Garden: Gather the Troopahs

Due to travel and a lack of time-management, I, sadly, only have one beer for you this week. But it’s one of the better themed brews I’ve come across...as soon as I saw the can, I knew I had to buy this Maryland beer.

Rockville, Maryland is 20 miles north (and slightly west) of Washington, D.C. and is home to one of the state’s best new breweries – True Respite.

True Respite hasn’t even been open two years yet, opening in April of 2018, but they have already won a slew of awards, including six in their first year of brewing and five more last year. What’s even cooler is that they nearly swept the Belgian Style category in last year’s Maryland beer competition, taking home both the Gold and Bronze medal!

Today, though, I have one of their Inner Circle Series brews based off of one of the best cult-comedy films possibly ever. Their Supah Troopah is a hazy IPA brewed with Amarillo, Centennial, Citra, Ekuanot, and Simcoe hops.

I was able to get my hands on almost exactly a liter o’ Supah Troopah, the two 16-ounce cans are just 1.8 ounces shy of being a full liter…but close enough! Each can cost $6 each and has a 6.9% ABV. It was packaged on 1/3/20 and reviewed 2/19/20.

Supah Troopah poured a super murky straw color with just a finger of bright white head topping it off. The dense foam lingers for a little while, creating a small makeshift barrier between me and the beer below. When it finally does fade away, some nice thick lacing is left behind.

Mother of God. That is a juicy smelling brew! Notes of dank pineapple, passion fruit, papaya, tangerine, and grapefruit filled the air. A backing of flaked oats and wheat gave it a nice balance and a dash of sweetness.

The grist gave Supah Troopah a soft and thicker body that seems to fill my entire mouth once sipped. It also mutes almost all of the carbonation to the beer, leaving just a small flash of effervescence.

There are no Shenanigans here, as the beer mimicked the aroma. Meow I’m not saying it was close to being as juicy as it smelled…it was exactly as advertised. It was a can of slightly resinous, slightly dank fruit juice with just a hint of bitterness biting towards the end of the sip.

Pineapple and tangerine pushed forward first with some light acidity. After a brief moment, the passion fruit, papaya, and grapefruit slowly began to build underneath.

But one of the five flavors got all “antsy in their pantsy” and began to take control towards the end – the grapefruit.

Even though the grapefruit was a late entry into the flavor profile, it really controlled the final moments of the beer. There was more than just the tart grapefruit flavor…with it was a resinous citrus peel bitterness that lingered just for a moment or two after everything else. It was the one time I was reminded that I was drinking a 7% beer and not a juice cocktail.

It was a super juicy NE IPA where the pineapple tasted like pineapple, the tangerine tasted like tangerine, and the snozzberries tasted like snozzberries!

I’m freaking out, man! I wish I had more than just the two cans…I hope it’s not too late to find more. Really good stuff here.

(Also, got in seven Super Trooper references...not too shabby)