I’ve seen the “honeydew” descriptor thrown around by Tree House, both by Nate and fans. I’ve never got it in any of their beers.
I’ve only had four different cans of EQ. One was great (their little 4.8% pale ale, Photon) the others were absolutely disgusting. Literally nothing but rotting melon. To me that melon “flavor” or aroma comes off as cantaloupe that’s been sitting in the garbage, it’s not pleasant at all.
I’ve had both Citra+ Amarillo Juice Project and now the Citra + Strata Juice Project as well as Curiosity 105. None of them have the rotting melon flavor/aroma I got from those EQ cans. I have some more cans of Citra + Strata Juice Project. I’ll have to see if I can find it.
I’ve only experienced that “overripe” melon flavor in I think 3 of my hoppy beers. One was a long time ago and two have been in the last few months. Both beers had a large dry hop of Citra and Simcoe at colder temps. First one also used HBC431 and the melon seemed to fade, thank god, as the beer conditioned in the keg. I attributed it to the 431 taking over. Most recent one that’s conditioning now had a large DH of Citra/Simcoe at colder temps. Citra is 2018 from Hops Direct that smells amazing out of the bag and I bought a lot of this summer. Simcoe is YCH 2018 that also smells really good. Used both of these a lot and even in the same DH but with other hops, and never encountered the melon.
I’m actually wondering if the melon is actually an off flavor caused by some poor yeast health and hop interaction. The most recent batch was an 8th generation VT Ale that seemed liked an incredibly healthy ferment. Pitched at 62 and let free rise to 70 since it was a 1.046 gravity beer. Hit 1.007 in 40ish hours and pH dropped a ton. Left it for a total of 5 days then cooled to 63 for two days, removed yeast, and cooled further to 58. No diacetyl or “off flavor” before dry hop at all. Melon was very apparent even after day 1 of DH. Actually now that I think about it I wonder if pH is at play here. I seem to get a much larger pH drop on smaller beers and especially when I let them free rise to a warm temp. PH was below 4.2 when I did dry hop it. Maybe certain hops, at certain temps, in a certain pH tend to bring out that rotting melon or cantaloupe flavor/aroma??? Whatever it is I’m not a fan and hope to not encounter it that often in the future.