Richly creamed dessert treat (limited edition circa June ’14) tastes like a chocolate cupcake, Devil’s Food cake and nutty Brownie all at once. Chalky Baker’s chocolate bittering and dry hop char contrast heightened mocha sugaring. Vanilla, cocoa, espresso and pumpernickel hints tail off at mellowed-out chocolate cake finish.
Trying to succeed as a uniquely hybridized curiosity and doing so for the most part, this ambitious German smoked beer combines its stylish beechwood sear with sweet chocolate malts and dark-toasted wheat sugaring. Hints of cured meat such as salami, sausage and spiced bacon ride alongside ashen campfire wisps. May lack body, but very sessionable as crossover fodder for dunkelweizen fans.
Fine draft-only medium-bodied East Coast IPA less reliant on heightened stylistic piney bittering than mild earthen-grained Galaxy hop pungency and strident herbage. Sedate grapefruit-pineapple tang embraced by tropical passion fruit, mango and kiwi snip (with possible orange marmalade, blood orange, tangerine and clementine wisps).
‘Easy drinking’ session ale utilizes stylistic piney fruiting and dry pale malts for toned-down grassy hop bittering. Muted navel orange and yellow grapefruit tartness nearly pushed aside for gentle floral-perfumed herbage. Lemon-rotted champagne yeast souring beckons. Low alcohol IPA could be summery saison alternative.
Workable soft-toned ‘golden ale infused with Orange Blossom honeyed’ cereal grains picks up musty earthen fungi and herbal black peppering above barren grassy-hopped dried fruiting. Mildewed apricot, lemon rot and moldy peach undertones get soured by raw honeyed sinew. Overall, lacking sunny citric spicing of more stylish hot weather moderation’s.
Rustic German-styled pilsner brings musky grain minerality and mildly embittered Noble hop astringency to gentle citrus midst. Pungent vegetal herbage suits dewy peat-like malting but minor aspirin-chalked acridity may be drawback.
Favorable springtime amber lager soaks raw-honeyed orange, red and yellow fruiting in perfumed citric hop resin to its wheat cracker spine. Lemon-rotted navel orange, yellow grape, tangerine, crab apple and pink grapefruit illusions as well as boozy vodka-tinged astringency desiccate pleasant sugar-spiced malting.
Sparkly IPA fruiting brightens sharp piney hop bite of boozy (9.5% ABV) tripel. Orange-peeled yellow grapefruit, pineapple and tangerine tang given vodka-tinged banana daiquiri spike. Dry rye spine plays possum for subtle white-wined peach, melon, mango and quince flutters.
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Inviting full-bodied dark ale (with mildly frothed creamy head) drapes light-roasted mocha malting atop brown-sugared maple molasses sugaring. Dried cocoa overtones lead the way, followed by brown chocolate and roasted coffee whims.
Closer to a vanilla porter than its semi-nebulous Belgian wheat styling indicates and far adrift from Shock-Top’s popular flagship brews, Raspberry Wheat or Belgian White, this fudge-creamed chocolate wheat ale may lack expectant Belgian chocolate spicing, but there’s no denying the impact of vanilla bean and cocoa ‘aging.’ Vanilla fudge sugaring spreads across the chocolate-caked interior to its dark wheat-malted spine. And the addition of dried cocoa fortifies the dry-roasted hops.
Updated recipe for lesser canned version lacks fruited nuttiness and sufficient dark-grained malting of original. Instead, tawny chestnut-hued moderation settles for blander dewy earthiness and murkier honey-roasted sweetness. Cat pee hints abound.
Drab light-bodied amber-cleared Vienna lager tastes more like a washed-out pilsner at first. But its understated toasted rye spicing sweetens softly over astringent raw-honeyed wheat straw midst and gluey cardboard bottom. Moldy dried fruiting and mild tobacco crisping lost to carbolic hop fizz. Try it with a lime while eating Mexican food.
