Hatherwood Twisted Knots American IPA Beer Review

Ah good old cheap LIDL beers from Hatherwood, the sneaky little offshoot of Wychwood Brewery which brews exclusively for LIDL. What I only recently found out is that Wychwood is actually owned by Marston, so I assume Hatherwood is too, but apologies if I'm wrong. I also found out that Marston is owned by Carlsberg, which would make Twisted Knots American IPA a beer brewed by Hatherwood an offshoot of Wychwood owned by Marston, which is owned by Carlsberg. I think I was happier before I knew all this. But anyway I picked this beer up from LIDL a couple of days ago so now it's time to see if it's any good.

Twisted Knots comes in a pretty cool 330ml can featuring an octopus in the sea, with various other seafaring creatures passing by. I guess the octopus is meant to be twisted in knots, but that's fairly unclear. Anyway the beer pours a nice enough dark amber with a pretty thin white head, so it looks like a fairly normal American IPA. There's a reasonably generous 5.5% alcohol content which feels about right for this kind of beer. I'm choosing to forsake my usual rant about 330ml cans just been too small this time, just to avoid repeating myself too often.

The beer has a pretty nice aroma with plenty of fruits, plenty of hops and no little malt all blended together nicely. It's a good sweet, citrus smell, which I always think works quite well with an IPA. There's certainly lots to like about Twister Knots so far. The texture is pretty smooth to be fair, it's about medium bodied, and doesn't feel like a cheap beer, despite the price. I say this because I also tried Dovestone IPA earlier and that really does feel like a cheap beer.​

The taste very much compliments the smell. Twisted Knots is quite complex with lots of citrus fruits and seven different hops all fighting for your attention. Fortunately it's just about well balanced enough to pull this off. Hatherwood seem to have produced a pretty good IPA, don't get me wrong there's nothing new or exceptional in there, but it's a good all rounder, and if you like a citrus fruit IPA you wont find many better for the price so give it a go. I'm going to give Twisted Knots by Hatherwood a good 7 out of 10. It wont let you down, and is excellent value for money.