Creative Imperial Chocolate Chai Pumpkin Ale allows sweet chai tea influence to top out above sugary cinnamon-toasted pumpkin pie spicing and cocoa-powdered brown chocolate malting. In the midst, creamy vanilla sweetens nutmeg, cardamom, allspice and cumin seasoning to contrast vegetal gourd-squash ripeness. Multifarious flavor profile never feels overcrowded. Instead, there’s no denying the depth and clarity of this rapturous chocolate pumpkin-caked medium-full-bodied autumnal dessert.
WILD WOLF STRAWBERRY SCHWARZCAKE
Mild, yet complex, hybridized schwarzbier brings modestly lingering strawberry affectations to smooth black chocolate creaming, dried cocoa supplement and honeyed wheat spine. Fresh wild strawberries sweeten tertiary raspberry-blackberry-blueberry-boysenberry tartness. At mocha-sugared strawberry finish, Devil’s food cake, strawberry shortcake and fudgy strawberry brownie illusions come alive.
(MOTHER EARTH) WEEPING WILLOW WIT
Bittersweet orange-peeled coriander lilt picks up sugar-spiced banana ripeness, zesty lemon lime tingle and tangy peach-pineapple-mango-tangerine niche to contrast sour yellow grape esters. Light white-peppered mint-leafed herbage and distant hay-strawed astringency provide dry side to sassy summertime spritzer.
FULLSTEAM SUMMER BASIL FARMHOUSE ALE
Passionate herbal-spiced summertime saison loads basil atop zesty lemon-peeled tartness as well as black-peppered lemongrass, sage, rosemary and mint seasoning. Grassy hop-oiled bittering contrasts honeyed pale malting. Yellow fruit rot infiltrates effervescent saison yeast and dry barnyard acridity at finish of approachable lawnmower beer.
FULLSTEAM CACKALACKY GINGER PALE ALE
Refreshingly ginger-spiced moderation (in a can) works sweet ‘n’ sour honey into mild hop bittering and herbal restraint. Dry ginger influence gains momentum over zesty lemon prickle and lemon rot spoilage. Minty fern, rosemary and lemongrass illusions add recessive pleasure.
(SUNKEN CITY) DAM LAGER
Mild amber lager in a can stays crisp and clean as brisk honey-spiced lemon spritz, delicate mineral graining and herbal hop nip recede at light bread-crusted spine.
THE UNKNOWN PRE-GAME SESSIONABLE PALE ALE
Sessionable canned moderation lacks fortitude as light honey-spiced lemon twist evaporates above bready wheat spine. Crisp and clean, yet ultimately forgettable.
FOOTHILLS TORCH PILSNER
Pungent Czech-styled pils brings raw-grained barnyard rusticity and sharp Saaz-hopped bittering to the fore as musky lemon rot souring increases over buttered biscuit malt base. Tertiary lemongrass herbage and minor straw grass acridity waver. Clean mineral water crisping battles back astringent ethyl alcohol burn. A must-have for heartier pilsner thirsts.
DIESEL PUNK PORTER
Dissipating molasses-sapped burnt caramel sweetness knocked back by less effective soy-sauced stale coffee sourness. Reminiscent of an oilier-hopped Baltic porter (with mild mocha-smoked black malting), though murkier flavor-wise. Too bad its constricted chocolate-milked Yoo-Hoo sugaring stays far below the dreaded mocha souring.
DIESEL PUNK INDIA PALE ALE
Slick contract-brewed (by Genesee) moderate-medium body scatters caramelized-spiced lemon, grapefruit, mango and peach tang above lingering acidic bittering that brings harsh solvency to desolate citric finish.
KENT FARMS BREWING COMPANY
KENT, CONNECTICUT
Connecticut’s first farmhouse brewery is a doozy. Inside a 2,400 square foot barnhouse on 48 rural countryside acres, KENT FALLS BREWING COMPANY relies on its own locally grown ingredients to craft small batches of intriguing sour ales, saisons, goses and India Pale Ales. Open for business during autumn, 2014, this organic well-watered brewery has already began bottling for local distribution and each beer brings something “unique to each season.”
Using a solar hot water system for sustainability and feeding spent grain to local livestock, Kent Falls’ mission is to responsibly serve the local community by crafting uniquely blended or hybridized beers from freshly harvested grains and hops.
On a sunny Tuesday afternoon in September ’15, I quaffed nine selections at Nanuet’s Ambulance Brew House. (In fact, Ambulance took several good customers on a trip to Kent Falls thereafter.) The reviews are listed separately in the Beer Index.
KENT FALLS ZEP ON THE JUKEBOX IPA
On tap at Ambulance, adventurously hybridized India Pale Ale (given heavy metal-related moniker) provides salt-licked yellow fruited pungency to its hard wood surface. Clean well-watered minerality and briskly carbolic hop prickle sharpen bruised lemon souring as well as tidy Golden Delicious apple scruff. Lightly spiced tart citrus finish picks up clean-watered celery nip.