Category Archives: Beers A-Z

MAYFLOWER PORTER

Sludgy full body retains dry schwarzbier acridity and musky Baltic Porter tendencies. Peanut-oiled cocoa bittering picks up Baker’s chocolate chalking, chicory coffee complacency and hop-charred wood burn over peat-malted molasses breading. Cresting walnut sear contrasts tertiary maple-sapped hazelnut sweetness and apprehensive black cherry-fig snip.   

KONA KOKO BROWN ALE

On tap at Morris Tap & Grill, up-front coconut juicing regales toasted almond, praline and pecan riffs above sweet vanilla malting, but watery nature lowers flavor profile. Brown chocolate-y toffee, caramel and fudge illusions drift thorugh sharp hop spicing, but intimidating alcohol burn and coarse charred nuttiness overtake sugary yeast pleasantries by depleted finish.

 

(GREAT NEW LONDON) SAFE HARBOR AMERICAN BLONDE ALE

Curious amber-hazed moderate body brings impulsive herbal twist to floral-hopped citric zest and raw-honeyed rye graining. Soft lemony grapefruit bittering and petty orange-oiled snip envelop peppercorn-lemongrass herbage to white-breaded backbone. Minor metallic sheen brings finishing astringency to the ‘Official Beer of the Whaling City’ (bottled by Pawcatuck, Connecticut’s Cottrell Brewery).

NARRAGANSETT BOCK

Genial pale-toned moderate-bodied spring bock retains crisp, clean, dry-bodied nature and delicate water flow. Subtle honeyed malt creaminess enhances polite spice-hopped fruiting and leafy floral nuances. Mellow peach, grape and quince illusions prickle biscuit-y cornbread spine and placid nuttiness. A nearly perfect post-prohibition-styled macrobrew reintroduced to the market around 2010.

NEW ENGLAND 668 NEIGHBOR OF THE BEAST BELGIAN-STYLE GOLDEN ALE

Impressive Belgian-styled pale ale in a can. Candi-sugared yeast caresses mild crystal malt creaminess and grassy-hopped tropical fruiting. Subtle grapefruit, pineapple, melon, cantaloupe and tangerine sweetness stormed by resolute clove-spiced banana taffy surge. Chardonnay, ambrosia and lemon custard illusions subsume sharply salted white peppering at alcohol burnt backend of fruitful endeavor.

AECHT SCHLENKERLA OAK SMOKE DOPPELBOCK

On tap at Copper Mine, palpably askew russet-browned German rauchbier (a.k.a. Eiche) brings unexpectedly heightened brown-sugared malt sweetness to anticipatory oak-smoked cured meatiness. Subtle faux-beechwood oak singe sunk into bacon fat, honey-glazed ham, barbecued pork and beef jerky illusions drops off a tad as syrupy maple-sapped caramelizing gains prominence. Latent dry nutty undertone emerges below beefy wood-soaked hop char.