Harpoon Summer Sampler 12x12

Beers included: Summer Style, Day Drifter IPA, Harpoon IPA, Camp Wannamango

Purchase Date 3 August 2024

Purchase Price $18.99

Initial Impressions

I didn't set out to buy seasonal sample packs all summer, but summer has always been my favorite beer season, and I found a few I was excited to see. 

The last summer 12x12 of the season, Harpoon is a brewery I thought I had talked more about in this space. I did brew a batch of Summer Somewhere inspired by the original UFO Hefewiezen. Some of my favorite Harpoon beers are classic styles like UFO Hef, Celtic Ale and Octoberfest. The old Harpoon Summer Beer was also a favorite, but I am fairly certain the new "Summer Style" is the same beer or close. Summer Beer was replaced by Camp Wannamango, which has since been demoted to the sampler. Day Drifter "nitro dosed" IPA is a new release; I have no idea what a nitro dosed IPA is supposed to be.

The flagship IPA is always a great beer to go back to. This was my first gateway to hop-forward beer. Back in the 2000s, there weren't a lot of locally produced IPAs. Most of the ones that were, were English IPAs. For a long time around here, Harpoon IPA was it. 

Beer Reviews

Harpoon Summer Style:

Aroma: Medium low light cereal, like Cheerios, low hop aroma.

Appearance: Gold with moderate haze. Foamy white head with good retention. 

Flavor: Low grainy and very lightly toasty malt. Hop flavor also low, citrus and spice. Fermentation mildly estery  

Mouthfeel: Medium light body, medium carb, finish nice and crisp. 

Overall: Perfectly balanced summer beer. Flavorful but still easy drinking. Both malt and hop character are low to medium low, which makes both in balance. If you’re like me and don’t want your summer ale to be a toned down IPA, this is the beer for you. Reminds me a lot of the old Harpoon Summer Beer. 

Day Drifter IPA

Packaged: 24 April 2025

Aroma: Tropical fruit and caramel

Appearance: Gold, touch of haze, Frothy white head with good retention. 

Flavor: Lots of tropical fruit, if not quite as much as a fresh NE IPA. Hop bitterness is medium low but sufficient.  Malt is there but doesn’t bring a ton to the table. Maybe a little bit of toast. There is a little staleness and oxidation, but not nearly as apparent as in my recent Brooklyn Summer Ale review. Maybe there is some caramel malt in here  

Mouthfeel: Very soft and smooth. The nitro-character is like half or 1/3 of a Guinness Draught. Finish clean. 

Overall: Feels like the Harpoon IPA grist, with different hops, unfiltered and dosed with nitrogen to give a NEIPA-like mouthfeel. I can imagine the brewers at Harpoon were trying to come up with a more modern IPA, that has some Harpoon character, that has some similarities to New England IPAs without being a New England IPA. That space is crowded with Voodoo Ranger, Samuel Adams, Fiddlehead, Night Shift and others packaged hazies in 12-packs. To say nothing of the multitude of hyper-local options. 

Do I like this beer? Yes. I found it more drinkable by the sip. Would I buy a 15-pack of this? Maybe. I’m drinking Harpoon IPA next. Tasting that after this will be instructive. 

Harpoon IPA

Packaged: 4 April 2025

Aroma: Floral and citrus hops. 

Appearance: Gold to copper, brilliant clarity. Big, foamy white head with fair retention. 

Flavor: Toasty malt with a hint of caramel. Moderate hop bitterness and medium high hop flavor that is floral and citrusy as the aroma suggests. Fermentation clean, low floral esters  

Mouthfeel: Medium body and carbonation. Finish smooth and clean. More dry with each sip. 

Overall: This is similar to the Day Drifter; the lack of nitro makes Harpoon IPA more dry and crisp, and the mouthfeel less soft. This is still an excellent beer even if it has more in common with Sierra Nevada Pale Ale than a modern IPA. Seriously, do a side-by-side with both beers sometime. The hop flavor in both beers is driven by Cascade hops. Sierra Nevada is a little lower in alcohol with a simpler of a grist, but the difference is quite small. 

Camp Wannamango

I drank one, then Jennie drank the other two before I could write thorough tasting notes, Her review, "good". I remember having a prominent, but not fake or cloying mango flavor. 

Overall Impressions of 12-pack

I enjoyed both of the seasonal beers quite a bit. Next summer I could see myself buying a 12-pack of just the Summer Style. For a summer sample back, I liked that both of the IPAs were crisp as opposed to heavy and starchy like some NE IPAs.

Micro-dosing an IPA with nitrogen was an interesting idea. It does soften the mouthfeel and the hop flavor does come through. It would be interesting to see how nitro-dosing a hazy IPA might work. It could be a good way to add perceived body, while lowering the final gravity to make a lower calorie beer. I still prefer the OG IPA, but maybe I'm just an old man.