Obliging mahogany-hued medium body offers blackened hop-charred bittering and wood-dried charcoal sear to mocha-fruited expectancy. Black chocolate roast deepens piquant piney-sapped grapefruit, pineapple and orange tartness. Black grape, fig and plum undertones waver.
Nifty India Pale Ale offshoot uses blue agave sugaring to set up sweet melon-nectar lead-in, sour mango-guava tropicalia and bitter lemony grapefruit-orange peel subtlety. Delicate soft-watered floral hop serenity provides elegant backup.
Full-on medium body maintains rounded mouthfeel and hearty stylistic appeal. Perfumed herbal hops and sugary crystal malts affect zesty citrus spicing. Mild grapefruit bittering, tangy orange marmalade sweetness and dried fig souring reach toasted rye wheat spine. Rigid alcohol burn will scare softer thirsts. On tap, tangy grapefruit-peeled orange rind bittering enjoins light piney hop-charred herbage over biscuity malts.
HYANNIS, MASSACHUSETTS
Escaping to the Massachusetts shoreline for a long weekend in July ’13, stopped by reliable CAPE COD BEER for a few pints (picking up each flagship beer in bottled versions as well). Inside a white sheet metal industrial building just off the main drag in Hyannis, this multifaceted microbrewery (with cement-floored back tap room, beer shop, retail store and large silver brew tanks) opened in 2004 and has grown in size over the years.
A comfortable beach-styled front porch with eight patio tables fills up this afternoon as my beers get poured inside. Presently, Cape Cod’s suds are only sold in the eastern Massachusetts area, but slowly the brewery’s range has expanded. Going from lightest to darkest brews during my one-hour stint, each efficient offering proves to be not only stylistically forthright but also intriguingly original.
Crisply light-bodied Beach Blonde saddled cereal-grained Vienna malting and soft Cascade-hopped bittering with a refreshingly sugared citric finish, gaining musky Czech pilsner-like lemon-rotted vegetal nuances along the way.
Medium-bodied signature beer, Red Right Return retained a toasted amber-grained hop spice reinforced by pallid crystal malt sweetness. Its centrist flavor will please pilsner, lager and pale ale imbibers.
Engaging hot weather moderation, Summer Hefeweizen, pleated its lovely banana-clove insistence with lemony Cascade hops and honeyed wheat.
Dry-bodied India Pale Ale loaded woody Chinook-hopped grapefruit rind bittering atop lightly smoked pale malts, picking up a sharp alcohol burn that nearly muted the ancillary peach-pineapple tang.
On the dark side, nutty mocha full body, Cape Cod Porter, worked its dark-roasted grain bill into Brazil nut, hazelnut and walnut illusions as well as molasses-sweet brown chocolate chalking and roasted coffee undertones.
Afterwards, spent two days at beautiful Orleans beach and windy Yarmouth inlet to try bottled versions (reviewed at Beer Index).
Tropical coconut-toasted dark ales are usually problematic as the expectant sweet mocha nuttiness gets lost amongst slick hop astringency and a watery flow. Same story here. Easygoing coffee-stained toasted coconut sugaring fades badly to washed-out smoked molasses finish. Metallic carbolic fizz depletes chalky chocolate and creamy vanilla notions.
