Horticulturally speaking, i'm pretty inept. Keeping them alive is a struggle, and I just don't get gardening. Much more fun to drink this and look at them, as the name suggests.
Plantgazer sounds like a slang term for people who hang around at garden centres, but Neon Raptor have given the name to a fruity, hazy DDH pale ale in the New England style, using 4 hop varieties to amp up the juiciness.
Mosaic, Galaxy, Amarillo and Simcoe are all hops known for bringing some fruit to the party and in Plantgazer they bring it in spades, giving it a really thick body and a punchy flavour.
It smells like a Caribbean fruit shop, emanating citrus and tropical fruit aromas from the moment you open the can. It pours quite thick and is really hazy, the tight carbonation creating a dense, foamy head which is delightful to drink through.
The small bubbles give it a really smooth flavour too which really helps the fruitiness to claim the limelight, as it were. The sweet tropical fruit flavours combine with the slight bitterness from the citrus flavours and the hops themselves to balance it really nicely.
The aftertaste sees the big fruit notes at the top of the beer fade a little and leave a piney, grassy flavour that's pleasantly dank - just the kind of herbal experience we would have expected from a beer called Plantgazer!
Silver cans and craft beer work together in a way that just feels right. Something industrial about them that makes you think of micro-breweries and small canning machines.
Neon Raptor have combined this with a simple black label that leaves little to the imagination in terms of can modesty.
I take the design to be something of a mimicry of stargazing, with the starry night sky and the luminous, almost galaxy-like plant life on the label.
The bright colours, along with the beer name in what looks to be some kind of 80s cartoon font and the brief bio on the front of the can; make this one quite a unique can. I'm here for it.
If you want to try out the horticultural ale then you can get your hands on one of these for £4.80 from Yorkshire Craft Beers.
Don't forget to drink it while gazing at some plants in your garden or even living room, to make it extra meta.
