Walking On Metcalf Review: Discourse Brewing’s Cold IPA, ABV and Where to Find It

Walking On Metcalf, or Walkin’ on Metcalf as Discourse Brewing spells it on the can, is the Overland Park, Kansas brewery’s cold IPA, and it is the beer I point people toward when they ask what a cold IPA actually is instead of another marketing label slapped on a regular West Coast IPA. I have worked through a lot of this style at this point, home and away, and Discourse’s version is one of the more focused takes I have run into: pine, orange peel and a wisp of berry over a base so lean it almost drinks like a lager. The name comes from an inside joke at the brewery, a photo of the founders wheeling a fermenter across Metcalf Avenue on a pallet jack when they were setting up the place, and it has stuck around as one of their regular releases ever since.

Walking On Metcalf at a glance

At a Glance

Who makes it: Discourse Brewing

Discourse Brewing opened in Overland Park in 2023, started by a small group that includes a former teacher, and it built its name on being a genuinely friendly neighborhood spot rather than a beer-nerd destination: bean bag games, an old-school Nintendo in the corner, a pet-friendly patio, and a brewhouse you can watch working from your table. That community-first approach matters for how I read a beer like Walking On Metcalf. It is not designed to win a hop-bomb arms race, it is designed to be the beer a regular orders three of on a Friday after work, which is exactly what a cold IPA is supposed to do.

Kansas is not the first place most drinkers think of for hop-forward beer, but the Kansas City metro has built a real IPA scene over the last several years, and I would put Discourse in the same conversation as Bentonville Brewing‘s output just across the state line in Arkansas: small regional breweries proving the hazy and cold IPA styles are not just a coastal thing anymore.

ABV, IBU and what is actually in the can

Here is where I want to be precise instead of just quoting one number and moving on. A popular community beer-rating app lists Walking On Metcalf at 6.4% ABV on its main entry, with no IBU shown. A tasting panel review published in Craft Beer and Brewing magazine, which reviewed a specific 2025 batch, recorded 6.6% ABV and an IBU of 43, and a later white-can 2025 version of the beer was listed at 6.7% ABV. None of that is a contradiction so much as the reality of a small taproom brewery that brews this one in rotating batches rather than one fixed year-round recipe. If you want a single working number, 6.4% to 6.7% ABV covers every batch I found record of, and I would treat 43 IBU as a reasonable but unofficial estimate rather than something stamped on the can.

What I can say with confidence is the hop bill: Discourse dry-hops this one with Mosaic and Simcoe, the same pairing behind a long list of American hazy and West Coast IPAs I have covered here, including Son of Juice and Foggy Geezer. What sets Walking On Metcalf apart from those is the grain bill: Discourse brews it with jasmine rice mixed into the base, which is an unusual move for an IPA. Rice ferments out clean and dry, stripping away malt body and sweetness, which is exactly the trick behind the brut IPA style too, just applied here to a cold-fermented, hop-forward beer instead of a dry sparkling one.

If you are new to the category, our explainer on hazy IPA covers why cloudy, juice-forward IPAs took over the style, but a cold IPA is really the opposite move: it borrows the lager yeast and cold fermentation schedule of a pilsner and points it at aggressive late hopping instead of malt character, so you get IPA-strength hop flavor riding on a body this thin. For the bittering side of the equation, our IBU guide is worth a read if the 43 number above does not mean much to you yet.

Tasting notes

This pours a pale, almost see-through gold, nowhere near the murky orange of a New England IPA, and that clarity tells you what you are getting before you even smell it. The nose is bright orange peel and tropical fruit with a floral edge underneath, classic Mosaic character, and the professional tasting panel notes I have seen echo the same thing: pine, passion fruit, a grainy note that stays short of sweet. On the palate it is lean and crisp, lemon and orange marmalade up front, a firm but not aggressive bitterness through the middle, and a finish that gets out of the way fast. The rice base is doing real work here, it keeps the mouthfeel light enough that the hop flavor reads as bright rather than heavy, closer in weight to a pilsner than to a typical 6.5% IPA.

Food pairing

Because the body is so light, Walking On Metcalf does not fight with food the way a heavier double IPA can. Grilled chicken, wings with a citrus or chili glaze, and anything with a squeeze of lime are all a natural match, the orange and passion fruit hop notes echo the char and citrus instead of competing with it. It also works well with milder Tex-Mex, think grilled fish tacos rather than anything drowning in cheese, and it is a good session beer for a backyard cookout where you want hop flavor without the double IPA fatigue by can three. For a deeper dive into matching styles to a whole spread, our beer and BBQ pairing guide is a good next stop.

How it compares to other IPAs we have reviewed

If you have spent any time in the hazy IPA world, Walking On Metcalf will feel like a deliberate step away from it. Compared to something like Rippp or Electric Jellyfish, both juicy, cloudy, full-bodied hazy IPAs, this one trades body and sweetness for clarity and speed. It sits closer in spirit to a well-hopped brut IPA than to anything New England-style, though it is not bone dry the way a true brut IPA is built to be. Against a bigger, hoppier release like Thunderbird, an 8% hazy double IPA, Walking On Metcalf plays a completely different game: this is a beer built for a second and third can, not a sipper. And measured against XXX OJ or other high-ABV triple IPAs on the site, the appeal here is restraint, not intensity.

The closest national comparison is probably Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing, if only because both beers are built around Mosaic hop character, but Hazy Little Thing leans into a soft, juicy, higher-calorie profile while Walking On Metcalf goes the other direction entirely, lean, crisp, and closer to a hopped-up lager. If you want a full rundown of what makes the hazy side of the category tick, our best hazy IPAs list is the place to start, and if dry hopping technique is what you are curious about, this explainer covers how a Mosaic and Simcoe dry hop like this one actually gets built into the beer.

Where to buy it

Discourse Brewing is a small, single-location taproom brewery and Walking On Metcalf has not shown up on Saucey’s delivery list, which tracks with a beer that mostly moves through the Overland Park taproom and a handful of Kansas City metro accounts rather than national distribution. If you are not near Kansas City, here are five cold and hazy IPAs with a similar hop-forward, easy-drinking profile that are available through Saucey right now.

FAQs

What style of beer is Walking On Metcalf?

Walking On Metcalf is a cold IPA, sometimes labeled IPA (Cold), brewed by Discourse Brewing in Overland Park, Kansas. Cold IPAs use a lager fermentation schedule with heavy late hopping.

What is the ABV of Walking On Metcalf?

Reported ABV has ranged from 6.4% to 6.7% across different batches and can releases, since Discourse brews it as a rotating rather than fixed-recipe beer.

What is Walking On Metcalf’s IBU?

Discourse Brewing does not publish an official IBU figure. A tasting panel review in Craft Beer and Brewing magazine listed 43 IBU for one batch, which should be treated as a third-party estimate, not a confirmed brewery spec.

What hops are used in Walking On Metcalf?

It is dry-hopped with Mosaic and Simcoe. The base grain bill includes jasmine rice, which keeps the body light and the finish dry.

Where can I buy Walking On Metcalf?

It is mainly available at the Discourse Brewing taproom in Overland Park, Kansas, and at select Kansas City metro accounts. It is not currently listed on Saucey, so drinkers outside the region should look at similar cold IPAs like Widmer Brothers Cold Waters or Rogue Knuckle Buster instead.

How does Walking On Metcalf compare to a hazy IPA?

It is much lighter in body and clearer in appearance than a hazy IPA. Where a hazy IPA like Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing leans on oats and wheat for a soft, juicy mouthfeel, Walking On Metcalf uses rice to strip out body, so the hop flavor reads as crisp and fast rather than soft and rounded.