Smoky cured meat aroma and Band-Aid mouthfeel give inceptive prickly-hopped tongue a peppery spicing, but girding beechwood seasoning depletes barley roast. Instead, piquant amber lager settles to sudsy cocoa-chocolate malt frailty.
All posts by John Fortunato
FORT COLLINS ROCKY MOUNTAIN I.P.A.
Rewarding moderate-bodied ‘sweet-tart’ straw blonde (with pearly head) has creamier malt flow than usual India Pale Ales. Dry orange-grapefruit permanence and juniper-currant bitterness rise above toasted barley base. Herbaceous floral hop spicing deepens fruity center and caresses burnt wood and tree bark illusions.
FORT COLLINS RETRO RED ALE
So-so “classic ruby red ale” allows some diacetyl muck to irritate serene mocha malting, roasted hop char, and dried fig-cherry recess. Soured orange rind dankness and earthen peat backdrop gird latent pumpernickel, walnut, and oak tones.
FORT COLLINS MAJOR TOM’S POMEGRANATE WHEAT
Smooth moderate-bodied pearly-headed straw blonde ale lacks syrupy pomegranate expectancy. Instead, narrow spice-hopped tingle and fragile lemony grapefruit pucker embitter frail grain backdrop. Plainly tart finish ensconced with soured peach, apricot, and green apple illusions.
(FORT COLLINS) KIDD LAGER
Earthen maroon-hued dark-lagered Schwarzbier retains hop-charred baker’s chocolate malting to dry burnt coffee finish. Ashen hickory and charcoal embers deplete cocoa-powdered fig-date souring. Off-putting cooked vegetable backdrop corrupts underlying toffee-vanilla-anise sweetness and walnut-cola nut astringency.
FORT COLLINS DOUBLE CHOCOLATE STOUT
Robust mahogany-hued full body brings polite cocoa bean bittering to cream-sugared coffee midst. Roasted hop-charred black chocolate distention latently burrows ashen cola-hazelnut slip, mild chicory clip, and pleated anise snip.
FORT COLLINS CHOCOLATE STOUT
Terra-cotta-like earthen grains disappointingly coarsen and overwhelm black chocolate smear, burnt coffee sneer, and cocoa powdered drear of dry maroon-hued astringency. Roasted hops bring tertiary charred wood, resinous ash, and tar illusions, but gaseous carbolic aridity vacates up-front mocha tonguing.
FORT COLLINS BIG SHOT SEASONAL ALE
Pedestrian medium-bodied nickel-hued seasonal (?) brown ale seems conflicted. Barley cereal toasting picks up likable tea-like component and slim cherry-berry fruiting, but earthen nuttiness and clove-spiced herbal tinge fail to integrate. Dismal chocolate malting and phenol hop bittering wilt. Honey-roasted fig, pecan, and chestnut illusions slip by tangy orange lilt. Never cuts to the chase.
FORST PREMIUM PILSNER
Befuddling plastic-cardboard mouthfeel debunks sweet crystal malt chasm, light-hopped fizz, muted orange backdrop, and grassy tinge. Pass.
FORDHAM HELLES LAGER
Perfunctory orange-yellowed dry malt lager with coarse chaffed wheat entry, sweet corn sway, and grassy earthiness lacks body, becoming soapy and bland by astringent caramel-nut finish.
FORDHAM COPPERHEAD ALE
Sweet caramel malt seduction lingers to peppery hop-embittered finish as wheat-husked barley backbone weakens and lemony apricot-lime tang loses out to fizzy carbolic ethers. Frisky amber-grained moderation will please lagerheads as well as red ale fans.
FLYING HORSE ROYAL LAGER
Deviant tawny lager splendidly debunks competition as delicious barbecue-smoked palate allows pithy lemony grapefruit-orange souring to engage mild hop-charred wood chip burn. Creamy foam wisp moistens lips before aromatic honey-dipped barleymalts seduce spicy bottom of respected India -brewed medium body.