Beer of the Week: Elysian's Juice Dust is exactly as good as you expect

Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage (or food) that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.

Elysian is a national circle of trust brewer. That means they’re a) big enough to be found just about anywhere and b) made enough good stuff for me to purchase a six-pack of their beer, regardless of style, without concern.

While some of their beers are better than others (and one smells exactly like weed), Elysian brings a baseline of care and quality to their lineup. That applies most to their pale ales. Space Dust is the headliner; a bitter, complex brew that hides its high alcohol by volume (ABV) behind lush flavor.

That put Elysian in a solid place to contend for tap space in a shrinking market of beer, but not without innovation. While light lager macrobrews remain America’s favorite, the top selling craft beer in the nation is New Belgium’s Voodoo Ranger imperial IPA — a beer that delivers bold flavor at a high ABV (9.0 percent). That’s signaled a trend toward beers that provide more booze for your buck.

Elysian’s newest brew, Juice Dust, steers another trend into that one. Hazy pale ales have grown in popularity over the last five years, emerging from regional breweries to become a staple from coast to coast. Juice Dust grafts fruit to the floral bitterness of the company’s flagship beer to create a big, boozy and juicy India pale ale.

A sitdown with brewmaster Chris Murakami shed some insight on how Elysian jumped in to an exploding market of hazies and imperial IPAs. He started with beer-mosas (beer and orange juice), then leaned into Elysian’s space motif by brewing with Tang — creating a beer that smelled great and tasted awful. That led to the orange juice that imparts the juicy flavor of Juice Dust.

That’s all pretty standard, but I had to ask: with consumers more conscious of how much alcohol is in each can, was there pressure to turn the ABV game into an arms race?

“I don’t have an interest to go much higher,” said Murakami. “8.2 is a sweet spot.”

“Is that the category you want to play in? Or do you want to be craft [brewers]? The plus-nine percent trend is a wild spend, but a lot of the market coming from that is coming over from Hurricane, Steel Reserve, other high ABV, malt liquor brands.”

Juice Dust definitely isn’t malt liquor. But does it hold up to Elysian’s high standard?

Juice Dust hazy pale ale: A-

It pours an orchard gold with a fluffy white head that lingers for a bit before slowly melting back into the beer. Despite the promise of hazy juice, this is still very hop forward when it comes to smell. You get some pine-y bitterness that reminds you, right away, that you’re dealing with Elysian and what they do best.

While the fruit is there beyond the minor notes you’d get from the Citra hops of its forebearer, it’s not excessive. There’s a solid balance between bitter and sweet citrus, the latter of which is noticeably a little smoother than Space Dust. There’s a see-saw between the two, then a dry finish to wrap everything up with a light orange aftertaste.

It doesn’t feel like an 8.2 percent ABV beer, but it’s a little more dense than a typical pale ale. Murakami notes that’s due to the rolled oats, which make up about 20 percent of the malt load. This is also significantly heavier than the original Space Dust in terms of total hops, per Murakami, but not nearly as bitter as you’d expect.

Despite the addition of orange juice early on, Space Dust and Juice Dust have the same calorie content, which is a pleasant surprise. Taking on a lunch’s worth of calories in two beers is a perpetual downside to big, boozy pale ales.

All in all, it’s another upper tier beer from a brewery with tons of them. Hazy IPAs aren’t always my thing, but I can appreciate them a six pack at a time. And Juice Dust is a worthwhile sixer, both when it comes to taste and ABV.

Would I drink it instead of a Hamm’s?

This is a pass/fail mechanism where I compare whatever I’m drinking to my baseline cheap beer. That’s the standby from the land of sky-blue waters, Hamm’s. So the question to answer is: on a typical day, would I drink Elysian’s Juice Dust over a cold can of Hamm’s?

Yep. I’d probably alternate between the two on a hot day because hazy IPAs tend to be more of a slow sipper, but there’s no denying this is another win for a brewery filled with them.