Review: Dogfish Head Nordic Spring

Skål! For the Nords, spring has sprung. The inaugural entry in Dogfish Head‘s 2024 Off-Centered Art Series, this is actually a rerelease of a beer that first debuted in 2022. Snazzed up in Moominian garb by Atlanta screen printers Methane Studios, this hazy IPA is brewed with Norwegian Kveik yeast, wild juniper berries, orange peel, and Danko rye malt. Orange peel… juniper berries… When used outside of witbiers, these are often trigger ingredients for a writer who’s consumed his fair share of potpourri-flavored IPAs. Did Dogfish Head subvert my expectations (dread)? Let’s see.

Nordic Spring pours opaque clementine with an effervescent, rocky head. It’s gently floral and fruity on the nose – a bed of freshly fallen pine needles, sitting delicately between the pungent spruciness of Dogfish Head’s own Pennsylvania Tuxedo and the lightly medicinal, aforementioned beer-things. It is, simply put, nice. Breezily so, given how juniper-led it is.

And then that juniper instantly slaps your palate. A little rindy on first sip, it’s mostly frontloaded and rounded out by the Kveik yeast. The fast fermenting, Norwegian strain often shows as bright and tropical, and here it lends notes of tart apple or pear, with a clean herbal citrus finish. It makes the entire product remarkably well balanced. Slightly lactic in consistency and sitting at 6.5%, it’s refreshing and immensely drinkable.

An easygoing springtime treat, then. This is a crushable, pleasant surprise and one of Dogfish Head’s better seasonal offerings. One for the mead halls.

6.5% abv.

A- / $14 per six-pack / dogfish.com

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