Musty earthen dankness downplays floral-dusted stone fruiting, mildly pine-hopped citric smudge and light molasses rye breading as dark-roasted caramel malt continuance slowly subsides. Tart apple-cherry-pear musk and recessive orange-pineapple-grapefruit drizzle lightly penetrate the surface.
Distinct Black Ale (in a can) utilizes freshly ground coffee steeped in cold water to increase dark-roasted black chocolate nuttiness. Sweet cold-pressed ice coffee affluence picks up distant cream-sugared fudging, boldly contrasting oily-hopped black coffee spell and cola-nutty earthen char.
Bold winter-seasoned India Pale Ale (in a can) offers moderate piney grapefruit bittering and sweet orange juicing to husky oats-dried rye malting. Sweet rye toasting deepens citric spicing at finish, picking up light pine nut smidge along the way.
Uniquely designed holiday ale brings honey and ginger root adjuncts to spruce-tipped hop freshener, toasted caramel malting and dank cellar musk. Sweet orange peel briskness emerges alongside tertiary black cherry, raisin and fig illusions as well as wintry cinnamon-clove-nutmeg adjuncts at the busy eucalyptus-honeyed citrus finish.
Incongruent ‘Imperial Mexican lager’ brings raw-honeyed orange flowering to pastry-like buckwheat malting and complacent floral-citric Amarillo hops. Bordering on cloy due to its cloying sorghum, aspartame and butternut nuances. Subtle lemony orange tartness seems lost.
Thin English-styled porter pleats black patent-malted chocolate bittering with sour-milked lactose acidity, molasses-burnt wood char and dried cocoa powdering, retaining peaty soy saucing for better or worse. Light wood char sears latent walnut and cola nuances.
Gunky Baltic porter pours like coke syrup and maintains smoky dark-roasted mocha malting. Â Rich burnt molasses muddiness thickens black chocolate, dark cocoa and creamed coffee tones that register above ashen hemp-oiled hop bittering.
Confounding wild-riced flagship nut brown brings soggy grain-roasted nuttiness and curious blood-soured mocha opulence to recessive rye malting and mild browned fruiting (desiccated fig, bosc pear, roasted grape, apple rot). Brown rice adjunct sweetens the fruitier aspects and maca-rooted chestnut roast.
Zesty yellow grapefruit juicing picks up citric rind bittering, dry pine lacquering and floral-perfumed tropicalia above grassy hop respite. Lemony pineapple, orange, nectarine, mango, papaya and tangerine tang sweetens grapefruit intrigue alongside syrupy crystal malts.
“Rustic” saison brings stylish citric-soured farmhouse yeast funk to buttery French-breaded sourdough bottom, picking up dry herbal swerve. Sour-candied lemon pittance, coriander-spiced mandarin orange snip and white pinot grigio nuance waver beside barnyard hay-straw acridity.
Intricately refreshing Berliner Weisse brings musty lactobacillus acidity to affluent lemon-rotted orange zest, sour yogurt spurt and dry saltine crisping. Funky farmhouse soiling adds musky leathering to tannic green grape, crabapple, passionfruit, raspberry, plantain and banana subsidies as well as white wheat base. Ratebeer’s Guerde rightly picked up dijon mustard illusion.
Not a particularly popular or convincing beer style since the musty pilsner malt breading and sourdough-skunked zwickel yeast musk defining this beloved Midwestern helles lager will put-off sweet-toothed imbibers (like Heineken oft-time does). Lemon-rotted sourness keeps floral-perfumed whim and metallic sheen at bay. Not a personal fave, but enjoyed by many German-influenced beer geeks.
