Look Closer IPA

Review Date 1/29/2024  By John Staradumsky

  Style: Double IPA   Brewery: Tantrum   Country: USA   State: Georgia   $ Per OZ: $.28 (D)   ABV: 8.4%

Beer from beyond the grave! That’s what I’m here to talk about today. Specifically, Tantrum Look Closer IPA. As I write this review, it’s been a few years since I actually drank the beer, though I have my tasting notes from the day I drank it to reliably preserve it for posterity. Since that time, the brewery has gone out of business sadly, and as I realized I had never visited them, it got me thinking about other breweries that have recently closed their doors.

Actually, what reminded me of this beer was a trip I was planning for my birthday this coming March. I had drunk a wonderful beer at Taco Mac, Round Trip Dunkel Platz. Round Trip specializes in German beer styles, and I love German beer styles, so I decided I wanted to go there. This reminded me of another brewery that specializes in classic old world styles, Iron Shield. Let’s go there too!

Except when I went to get their hours of operations, I learned much to my dismay…they had closed. This made me think of my trip to Helen a few years ago. Normally when I go each year for Oktoberfest, I drink imported German beers exclusively. Hadn’t there been, though, one local beer I had drunk there once?

I had, and it was Tantrum Look Closer. Tantrum, then, was another brewery on the list of recently closed ones along with Iron Shield. The most notable brewery closure, of course, was Anchor last year, and that one stung most of all. But there have been a number of local Georgia breweries closing in the last few years: Orpheus, Red Brick (Atlanta Brewing), Burnt Hickory, Second Self, Anderby, Rome City, Pontoon, and more.

I said this last year with the closing of Anchor but it bears repeating: the fickle nature of we the beer geeks is behind the recent rash of brewery closings. We are so fixated on the latest fads and trens and the hottest new breweries we neglect the long established ones, and even some of the newer ones. Tantrum, for example, was not open that long before it closed.

Tantrum was local to Helen, and their facility survives at least, now operating as NoFo brewing. Their IPA was a tasty one, and I enjoyed it on draft at the Hofbrauhaus with dinner on October 19^th of 2022. It was an Imperial IPA of strength 8.4% by volume and a bargain at $4.50 for a pint. It had grapefruit citrus in the nose, more of the same in the palate and tropical mango and pineapple as well. In the finish it was well balanced with hop bitterness, and I very much enjoyed it.

Glad I tried it?  T

Would I rebuy it??