King Limbo IPA

Laine Brew Co are a brewery born from the pub and beer scene of Brighton, producing experimental brews and releasing them unpasteurised and unfiltered. It was founded in 2010, and takes it’s name from the Sussex dialect term that describes the open farming lots that surrounded Brighton, before urbanisation. Their parent company also runs over 50 bars and pubs in the south of England, all serving their various ales to thirsty punters.

For a brewer with such a prolific output over a decade, and with a decent distribution base at their fingertips, it’s maybe slightly disappointing that only one nolo beer has been released from their brewery in the last 12 years. King Limbo IPA was released in early 2019, with the beer being produced from a challenge of ‘how low can you go’ while remaining a decent drinkable beer. Hence the name ‘King Limbo’. Laine Brew Co have used a quartet of hops to flavour their IPA; Citra, Columbus, Mosaic and Summit. Citra and Mosaic most of you will be familiar with – regularly supplying citrus and tropical bitterness to ales all over the world. Columbus is known to impart a herbal and lemon citrus aroma, whilst Summit is not a hop I’d come across before. It’s a relatively new hop variety which is meant to give yet more citrus flavours and aromas to a brew. From those descriptions it seems we have an idea what to expect from King Limbo, so let’s see how low the brewer has set their bar.

Pouring the beer from the bottle we get a lively golden coloured liquid with some fridge haze visible. A frothy white head is produced, maybe a finger thick but does it’s best to hang around. On the nose we get pine aromas, grapefruit citrus, tropical lychee and some sherbet sweetness. Not quite as much citrus than I was expecting, but it certainly smells like this is going to be a bitter one.

There’s an initial sweetness when we taste that I wasn’t really expecting, but this quickly and sharply swerves into bitterness, with an earthy pine astringency bulldozing it’s way into your taste buds. There’s bags of citrus too, with grapefruit dominating, and some fragrant mandarin managing to affect a presence. The carbonation feels a tad on the high side (I was burping away merrily), but the body and mouthfeel are smooth and thick, with the unfiltered nature of the beer probably helping in this respect. We get a dry finish to the drinking session.

Laine Brew Co King Limbo IPA is a well-crafted NA from the Brighton brewers which has enough hoppy bitterness to probably class it as a West Coast style of IPA. If you prefer a bit of juicy sweetness to your ale, this might not be your thing, but I think the hop-heads will happily lap it up.

Buy King Limbo IPA

Laine Brew Co’s beers are mainly available in the south of England in their parent company’s many pubs and bars. You can also nab some bottles of King Limbo IPA online here:

Nutritional Information (per 100ml, taken from the side of the bottle)
ABV	0.5%
Energy	11 kcal
Fat	<0.1g
Carbohydrates	2.4g
Sugar	0.4g
Protein	0.3g
Ingredients
Water, Malted Barley, Maltodextrin, Wheat, Rye, Hops, Yeast
Additional Information
Country of Production	United Kingdom
Brewer	Laine Brew Co – https://laine.shop/
Gluten Free?	No
Vegan Friendly?	Yes