Fermented with pineapple and matured in oak caskets, sticky sweet citrus-toned malt beverage retains juicy fruit thrust from the start. Softly carbonated, silky, nearly cloy, tartly hard-candied treat is easily the best pineapple-flavored lambic currently available. But it’s predictable after a few swigs and limited in appeal.
All posts by John Fortunato
CHAPEAU APRICOT LAMBIC
Tangy apricot essence with eye-squinting oaken tartness well integrated for excellent cask-conditioned dessert beer. Sour citrus allure and Pez-like fizz given lime-y backdrop to musty cork-mildewed stone fruit finish.
CHANG LAGER (MALT LIQUOR)
Strong creamy-headed Thai sometimes sold under malt liquor banner maintains lingered barley-corn bittering and sourdough-y Scotch malt sweetness, staying ticklish on the tongue and mellow down the throat. ’07 tasting found clear pale lager increasing sharp-hopped wheat gluten stickiness burrowing through oxidized turpentine acidity. Compares favorably to bold Eastern Euro beers due to lofty malted grain pungency and tinny metallic twinge.
CERVEZA MEDALLA
Generic named lager forges persistent mellow mood from sweet barley, sour yeast, and subtlest cocoa. Delicate fizz tickles tongue. Simple soothing relaxant.
CERVEZA PILSENER
Generic named pale yellow Ecuadorian with up-front cereal grain template not far removed from most watery Mexican pils offering hop fizzed soapy nature. Curious wood-smoked hint silenced by limpid wheat graze, cloy corn snip, tart peach slack, and cardboard mouthfeel.
CERVEZA PANAMA
Typecast South of the Border beer retains translucent pale yellow complexion, flowery hop bite, and tequila twist. Dry barleymalts dominate simple ‘almena’-style lager as lively fizz lingers on tongue. But underlying beauty of Panamanian brew is its crisp mountain water. Best served chilled.
CERVEZA MARCA INDIA
Languid smoked barley sweetness and faint wheat presence counter slack hop bitterness overwhelmed by watery carbonation. Roasted malts inundate unrealized finish. Compares unfavorably to Jamaica’s Red Stripe.
CERVEZA LA TROPICAL PILSENER
Bitterly pungent puffy white-headed mild body lacking expected ‘tropical’ fruitiness. Fizzy hops streamline sweet barley tones to soapy finish.
CERVEZA-AGUILA PILSNER
Friskily carbonated pale pilsner with dank malt overtones, salty corn murmur, bland barley strand, and unobtrusive nutty remnant pleasing to novices only.
CERVESA ARTESANA CATALANA PORTER ALE
Distinguished prune-hued fruity porter links ripe tangerine-peach-melon tang to flaked chocolate dryness, coalescing for loud raisin-nut finish. Spicy hop bottom and herbal fringe swell upon third passing, seducing expressive fruitcake nuance. A tough find, though.
CERNA HORA KVASAR
Soft textured pale-bodied honey lager brings barley-roasted wheat biscuit sweetening to mildly hopped finish, slowly souring to washed out aftertaste.
CELIS WHITE BELGIAN STYLE HEFE WEIZEN
Dawdling fluffy-bubbled thick-headed golden-clouded wheat beer offers dry lemony tartness to spicy clove spurt, but aimlessly bittersweet coriander-tingled orange peel finish meanders. Resigned to mediocrity as nothing distinguishes this supposed “white Belgian-style”” witbier.