Night Letters Review: Fallside Brewing’s Hazy Double IPA With Long Live Beerworks

I keep a running list of small-brewery hazy DIPAs worth tracking down, and Night Letters has been on it since the first can turned up in a trade box from a friend near Cohoes, New York. Fallside Brewing is a small taproom operation there, better known locally for rotating lagers and pale ales than for chasing the New England IPA crowd, so a hazy double IPA with a striking black-and-white label was not what I expected from them. It is also a collaboration, brewed with Long Live Beerworks out of Providence, Rhode Island, a brewery that has built its whole reputation on IPAs like this one. That pairing shows in the glass.

Night Letters at a glance

At a Glance

How it tastes, by the numbers

This is a haze-forward, juice-first double IPA. The bitterness is there to balance the fruit, not to lead the beer, and it drinks softer than an 8 percent beer has any right to.

The full review

Night Letters pours a hazy, glowing orange-gold with a thick, lasting head, the kind of look that tells you the oats and wheat in the grist are doing real work before you even get to the hops. The nose is where the Citra and Galaxy combination takes over: ripe mango, tangerine peel and a faint tropical candy note that Motueka backs up with a lime-leaf sharpness instead of letting it go one-dimensional. Simcoe sits underneath all of that, adding a resiny, faintly piney edge that keeps the aroma from tipping into pure fruit juice.

On the palate it is soft and full-bodied without being heavy, the haze giving it a smooth, almost creamy texture that carries the tropical fruit through the middle of the sip. The 8 percent ABV is well hidden. There is a light warmth on the finish, but no boozy heat and no harsh, resinous bitterness fighting the fruit. It finishes dry enough to invite another sip rather than sweet enough to feel like a dessert beer, which is the balance a lot of double IPAs in this style miss. Compared to a lot of hazy DIPAs I have gone through this year, Night Letters keeps its hop character bright rather than muddy, and that is down to a fairly aggressive dry hop schedule for a beer this size, based on how much aroma survives all the way to the bottom of the glass.

Fallside Brewing: the story behind the can

Fallside Brewing runs out of Cohoes, New York, a small city on the Mohawk River just north of Albany, best known for the Cohoes Falls that give the brewery its name. It is a taproom-first operation, and the day-to-day tap list leans into approachable, sessionable styles: a Mexican-style lager called Lansing Lager, a easy blonde ale with blueberries (Berkley Blonde), a red ale (Greenbriar), a chocolate coffee stout (Taylor), plus seasonal releases like an Oktoberfest and a pumpkin ale. Night Letters is a step up in both ABV and ambition from that everyday lineup, closer in spirit to the numbered “Experimental” IPA series the brewery runs on the same tap wall, which has included straight hazy IPAs built around Citra and other single-hop showcases.

What makes Night Letters stand out on the shelf is the label itself: a black can with a stark white woodcut-style illustration of a woman playing violin, worlds away from the bright, cartoon-forward look most hazy IPA cans go for right now. It is a small detail, but it tells you this collaboration was treated as a genuine creative project rather than a quick seasonal filler.

Fallside x Long Live Beerworks: why the collab matters

Long Live Beerworks, the Providence, Rhode Island brewery behind the collaboration, has built its whole identity around IPAs, sours and barrel-aged stouts, and its beers consistently rank among the more sought-after cans coming out of southern New England. Teaming up with a small Capital Region taproom like Fallside for a hazy double IPA is the kind of pairing that tends to punch above its weight, because it puts a bigger brewery’s hop-handling experience behind a smaller brewery’s house yeast and water profile. That shows in how clean this beer drinks at 8 percent ABV: the fruit character reads more like Long Live’s house style than a typical small-taproom hazy IPA, while the softness in the mouthfeel feels like Fallside’s own touch.

The hop bill, explained

Citra and Galaxy are the two hops doing the heavy lifting on tropical fruit and citrus, which is a pairing I have seen work well in a lot of the best hazy IPAs I have gone through. Motueka, a New Zealand hop related to Saaz, adds the lime-leaf and lemongrass note that keeps the fruit from tasting like straight orange juice, and Simcoe brings a resiny, slightly piney backbone that gives the beer some structure. If you want the full breakdown of how bitterness gets measured and why a beer this hop-heavy can still read as smooth rather than sharp, my guide to what IBU actually means covers the units side of it, and my explainer on what makes an IPA hazy in the first place goes into the oats, wheat and yeast strain choices that give beers like this their soft body and cloudy look.

What food pairs well with Night Letters

The fruit-forward hop profile wants food that can either match its sweetness or cut through the body. Grilled or smoked chicken thighs with a citrus glaze play up the mango and tangerine notes, while a plate of Nashville-style hot chicken or anything with real chili heat leans on the Simcoe pine and light bitterness to reset your palate between bites. Fish tacos with a mango or pineapple salsa are close to a direct flavor match. If you are planning a whole spread around it rather than a single dish, my beer and BBQ pairing guide has a longer rundown of which styles go with smoked meats, and a hop-heavy double IPA like this one is squarely in the “cuts through fat and char” camp rather than the “matches char for char” camp you would want from a smoky imperial stout.

How it compares to other hazy double IPAs I have reviewed

Night Letters sits near the top of the hazy DIPA reviews I have written this year for pure drinkability at its ABV. 5th Element from Conclave Brewing uses a similar Citra and Motueka combination but leans sweeter and less resiny since it skips a Simcoe-style pine hop. Strange Haze from Highlander Beer is a more aggressive, less balanced take on the style at a lower ABV, while Mountain Haze from Woodstock Inn Brewery is a gentler New England IPA that does not try to be a double at all. For a true head-to-head on the imperial end of the style, Crowd Control from Southern Prohibition Brewing is the closest thing to a direct competitor: similar ABV, similar haze density, but a punchier, more citrus-peel-forward finish where Night Letters stays rounder and more tropical. If you liked how Debaser from Gravely Brewing Co handled its hop character, Night Letters is a reasonable next stop.

Where to buy Night Letters

Night Letters is a small-batch collaboration release, sold mostly through the Fallside Brewing taproom in Cohoes and at Long Live Beerworks in Providence, plus whatever bottle shops those two breweries distribute to directly. I could not find it listed for national delivery through Saucey at the time of writing, which tracks with how limited a taproom collab run usually is. If you cannot get your hands on this specific can, these five are the closest things I would reach for instead, all currently available for delivery:

If you like this style

Hazy double IPAs like Night Letters sit at one end of the hop-forward spectrum. If you want something drier and more aggressively hopped without the haze, my guide to what a Brut IPA actually is covers the bone-dry, champagne-like end of the IPA family, a useful contrast to how soft and full this beer drinks. And if fruit-forward hop character is not the flavor you are chasing at all, my guide to imperial stouts covers the malt-driven, high-ABV alternative at the opposite end of the craft beer spectrum.

Who it is for

The verdict

Night Letters earns its 4.45 out of 5 community rating. It is a genuinely well-built hazy double IPA that hides 8% ABV behind a soft, fruit-driven body, and the Fallside x Long Live Beerworks pairing gives it more polish than most small-taproom collabs manage. My only real complaint is availability: this is a beer you mostly have to go looking for, either at the Fallside taproom in Cohoes or wherever Long Live Beerworks sends its cans in Rhode Island.

FAQs

What is the ABV of Night Letters by Fallside Brewing?

Night Letters is 8% ABV, brewed as a hazy imperial IPA in collaboration with Long Live Beerworks.

What is the IBU of Night Letters?

Fallside Brewing has not published an official IBU figure for Night Letters. Based on how the bitterness reads against the fruit-forward hop bill, it drinks closer to a moderate 50s-to-60s range typical of hazy double IPAs, but that is an estimate, not an official number.

What hops are used in Night Letters?

Citra, Motueka, Galaxy and Simcoe. Citra and Galaxy drive the tropical and citrus character, Motueka adds a lime-leaf sharpness, and Simcoe brings a resiny, piney backbone.

Where is Fallside Brewing located?

Fallside Brewing is a taproom brewery in Cohoes, New York, a small city on the Mohawk River near Albany.

Is Night Letters available outside the taproom?

It is a limited collaboration release with Long Live Beerworks of Providence, Rhode Island, sold mainly through both breweries’ taprooms and the bottle shops they distribute to directly. It was not showing up on Saucey’s national delivery listings at the time of writing.

What does Night Letters pair well with?

Grilled or smoked chicken with a citrus glaze, spicy Nashville-style hot chicken, or fish tacos with mango or pineapple salsa all play well against its tropical hop character.