Fruits of revolution

The United States of America will shortly be celebrating 245 years since it achieved independence and I thought I would mark the occasion with some American beers. As it happened, there was something of a theme to what was in my fridge when I went looking for candidates.Another Sierra Nevada brand extension? Hell yeah! This is Mango Little Thing, number eleventy-seven in the hazy IPA series, this time with tropical fruit added. It's a gentle 6% ABV and an innocent sunny yellow colour; hazy but not fully opaque. I do wonder if that's a conscious choice for marketing reasons or a mere consequence of the vast quantities in which the brewery makes its beer. The aroma strikes a syrupy note; artificial and sticky, not like real mango. That becomes even more pronounced in the flavour, where the foretaste is like opening a bag of Skittles and giving each item inside a single lick. It is somewhat redeemed by still being an IPA, not merely an agglomeration of fruit gack. A subdued hop character…