Wondrous piney-hopped citrus fruiting brings lovely IPA-like setting to rich mocha-smoked malting. Brisk grapefruit-peeled orange-tangerine-pineapple tang and ancillary peach-pear-apple-cherry-berry conflux reach honeyed wheat spine while nut-charred respite underscores frantic fructose sweetness. A well-balanced medium-bodied red ale crossover for hardened hop heads to try.
On tap at FishBones in Orlando, enjoyable honeyed citric spicing overlays cake-battered caramel malting. Lemony orange, grapefruit, apple and peach tones fade slowly into barley biscuit backdrop. Appealing middle-of-the-road fodder with just enough body and character.
Murkily off-the-beaten-track oats-flaked stout desiccated by sour coffee musk and ashen charcoal tarring. Shrill dark chocolate chalking inundates soy-soured cherry snip and ascending port-bourbon wining. Weird green olive pungency jilts dirty mocha finish.
Bland moderation with polite grassy hop astringency and wavering lemony grapefruit-orange zest picks up sharp salty spicing. Honeyed cereal malt backdrop stays slick.
Brewed by Thomas Creek for Inlet, musty-fruited moderation utilizes candi-sugared Belgian yeast for underwhelming and ill-defined singel-amber merger. Murky prune-dried banana bruise and estery grape-stemmed white wining reach tart midst. Moldy fruit rotted core desiccates negligible spiced nuttiness.
Slick lactose-sugared imperial stout hybrid (bottled by Thomas Creek) blends grain-roasted mocha into pomegranate-juiced dried fruiting. Dark chocolate, burnt caramel, day-old coffee, espresso and black licorice illusions gain molasses-like sinew. Tertiary blackberry, black cherry, red plum, prune and raspberry tartness magnified by sour pomegranate adjunct.
“Surreptitiously clean” light-bodied wheat ale (2013) tastes like blueberry pie. Sweet ‘n sour bluebery tartness rides above wispy honeyed wheat base. Tertiary white peach, boysenberry and cranberry snips flutter by.
“Mammoth” dry-hopped IPA stays balanced while never getting too bitter. Grapefruit-peeled orange rind bittering picks up resinous pine sap to contrast tropical mango-papaya-peach-pineapple-tangerine tang and sweet floral-spiced respite. Toasted hops infiltrate biscuity bottom by brisk citrus finish.
Approachable dry-bodied moderation with brisk citric-hopped entry, piney floral bouquet and creamy caramel malting may be too light for hopheads, but pale ale imbibers will cheer. Subtle lemony grapefruit, orange and pineapple fruiting picks up spicy sweetness over biscuity honeyed wheat spine.
On tap at Shepherd & Knucklehead, immaculate full-bodied dark ale detailed by the richest French roast coffee theme imaginable. Dark-roasted hop char increases the bittersweet coffee robustness. Wood-burnt barley-oats toasting found in creamy recess. Espresso dots the extravagant java coffee bean finish.
On tap at Shepherd & Knucklehead, 2013 special release seems compromised by rapidly declining beechwood smoking that would’ve lent a terrific rauchbier-like wood burn to the dark and black chocolate overtones. Maple molasses thickens the oatmeal backdrop and latent black cherry tartness deepens the mocha richness.
Chewy chocolate cinnamon caking abruptly enjoined by black-peppered ginger spicing above sharp hop char. Evenly spread black chocolate, black coffee and espresso illusions enrich the raw molasses-sapped backend.
