Ornate Danish-styled Christmas Ale offers fig-sugared raisin sweetness to molasses-sapped caramelized rye malting and mildly coarsened earthy hop astringency. Ginger-spiced clove, cinnamon and nutmeg seasoning provide mild wintry warmth alongside subdued bourbon-burgundy wining. But fruit-caked cherry, prune and plum illusions need deeper penetration.
Amazingly approachable Bamberg-styled smoked beer offers serene smoked beechwood pleasantry to sweet-spiced chocolate malts. Sooty campfire char deepens oncoming Canadian bacon and cured meat illusions. Sweeter than less defined rauchbiers that suffer from getting washed-out and losing initial smoked pleasantry.
On tap at Shepherd & Knucklehead, smooth moderate-bodied autumn seasonal allows caraway-seeded rye spicing to inform wet-hopped grapefruit-peeled orange rind bittering and bark-dried lemon pit pungency. Ancillary peach, apple and tangerine fruiting seeps in.
Straightahead Baltic-styled strong porter anchored by Blackstrap molasses-embittered mocha dryness. Pine-sapped ashen wood tones, fudgy chocolate caking and dark caramel shading drape vinous port-wined dried fruited cavern to resinous earthen bottom. A tad thin by the carob-powdered Baker’s chocolate-like finish.
Nebulous blue collar fodder lacks true Munich-styled helles lagering as phenol astringency nearly buries raw-honeyed dried wheat scouring and prickly grassy-hopped citric-quince stint to weak doughy bottom. Buttery malting turns diacetyl right away.
Tenacious strong ale reaches rich dried fruited pinnacle, though boozy sherry-brandy whir and listerine-like ethanol burn may turn off lighter thirsts. Ripe red cherry, dried prune, raisin, fig and grape illusions enhance caramelized molasses malting. Resinous piney hops contrastively enhance syrupy maple-sugared chocolate cake sweetness.
Ironically, Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast while I consumed this hybridized ‘hop-flooded’ amber-hazed brown ale. Grapefruit-peeled pine resin leads the way for citric-laden medium body. Fruited hop spicing heightens subsidiary toffee malting. Tertiary pineapple, prune and raisin illusions abound.
Disgustingly cloy and artificially colored green-hued malt beverage tastes like perfunctory ginger ale or drab malt liquor. Glutenous gummy sugaring, slick lime soda reminder and lemon-candied barley malting reduced to nasty carbolic astingency. Stink…stank…stunk. Trash.