Beer column: Brewery behind Fat Tug drops a new IPA and it’s juicy

When the fine folks at Driftwood Brewery announce that they’re dropping a new IPA, you listen.

The popular Victoria brewery is home to arguably the most iconic IPA in British Columbia – Fat Tug – and earlier this month a new Driftwood IPA was born.

“Drench your senses and dip into a cosmic orchard of hop hedonism,” the brewery says about its newest beer, and if those words don’t sell you, I don’t know what will.

The new Driftwood Juicy IPA does not appear to be a seasonal release, given the fanfare around its reveal that included a launch party on May 7, and it looks as though it’s been in the works for a while.

I did a little digging and found a Driftwood social media post from late September 2024, which talked about a “pilot release” only available in the brewery’s Victoria taproom until the keg ran out.

While I can’t say for sure whether this new Juicy IPA drop is what that test batch from the fall turned into, it seems likely that they’ve been testing this new creation for a while.

Unfortunately, I haven’t had the chance to taste this one yet, as it hit liquor stores right after I left the country on vacation, but I can’t wait to hunt it down and try it when I get home.

With that in mind, I’m simply going to let the brewery talk about what to expect with its new Juicy IPA, which comes in at 6.2% ABV (alcohol by volume).

“A balanced malt body elevates a complexity of juicy and layered hop profiles, with ripe rays of sun-drenched stone fruit and glimmers of squeezed citrus,” a Driftwood social media post explains.

“Mosaic hops impart aromas of orange blossom and mixed berries, while the Krush varietal melds a tropical bounty seamlessly into the array of Driftwood Juicy IPA.”

Let’s be honest, they can describe their beer 100 times better than I ever could anyway…

Since it’s one of the biggest breweries in BC, Driftwood beers are typically not hard to track down, which means you should be able to find this new one popping up in liquor stores all around BC.

Josh Duncan is the NowMedia news director and a craft beer lover. Reach him at [email protected]. His beer column appears every Saturday afternoon in this space.