21st Amendment Brewing out of San Francisco—they of the (formerly) Watermelon Wheat fame that is always a hit at the Oregon Brewers Festival—began canning two of their beers just under a year ago, and it was fairly recently that they started distributing in Oregon.

I found them both at The Brew Shop here in Bend and decided to start with their IPA—Brew Free! or Die IPA. (The Watermelon has a similarly punny name.)

BFoD is an American-style IPA, 7% alcohol by volume (though the website says 7.2%), and they dry hop the beer with four different types of hops. Serious beer in a can!

Appearance: Darkish-orange in color, hazy, with a nice creamy dense head leaving good lacing.

Smell: Thick spicy-citrus hops and a flossy-sugar sweet malt punch.

Taste: Great hop-forward character here—green and sticky, a touch of resin, a bit of “dusty” spiciness. Malty, clean, understated sweetness.

Mouthfeel: Medium-to-full-bodied, great sticky presence on the tongue that manages to finish clean.

Overall: Solid IPA, flavorful and enjoyable to drink—you keep coming back to take another pull. Not over-the-top hoppy, either—well balanced. Definitely one that should be on your “can shelf.”

On BeerAdvocate, it scores an overall grade of B+. On RateBeer, it scores 3.63 out of 5 and is in their 92nd percentile.