Hood River’s Double Mountain Brewery has a new collaboration beer out, brewed with E9 Brewing Company of Tacoma, Washington: Hi Friend! IPA. The brewery sent me a bottle to sample, which arrived last Friday.

Details from the press release:

Double Mountain Brewery & Cidery is excited to release Hi Friend! IPA , a collaboration with our friends to the north at E9 Brewing Co. A warm welcome of ripe grapefruit, tangelo, and bright forest greet the nose of this IPA, like old friends getting together for a high five and a few laughs. It’s certainly been a while, hasn’t it? Dry and quenching, light on the tongue, and pulling sticky citrus and forest aroma; it’s a perfect beer to welcome friends (safely) on those warm evenings when the spring is waning and summer is getting started.

One collaboration wasn’t enough and the two breweries got together for a Washington-only Grisette dubbed Kissa Me. Supremely crushable and low on ABV, this Grisette is can conditioned. To find it, you may have to venture north, but traveling will be well worth it!

The Double Mountain and E9 collaboration, Hi Friend! IPA, is available in refillable 500ml bottles and on draft at our Hood River Taproom, SE Portland Taproom in the Woodstock neighborhood, E9 Brewing, and at fine establishments throughout the Northwest.

Hi Friend! IPA 6.3% ABV 45 BU
“Shane has been quietly making some of the best beers in the PNW for years, and I’m honored to have the chance to work with him. We wanted to bring something that we would sit down and have a few of while catching up. Hi Friend! is just that.” Matt Coughlin, Lead Brewer

Sounds a bit like a summer IPA, not that that’s a thing, but I’ll try to tease it out when I drink it.