Eccentric Bamberg-styled smoked beer retains watery soft-toned essence pitting evaporative beechwood-like cured meat smokiness against zesty lemon tartness. Light rye breading picks up latent white-peppered green tea herbage. Musty opium waft slowly recedes.
Thin German holiday lager lacks enthusiastic Yuletide punch and expectant seasonal spicing of wintry bock. Sedate dark-roasted coffee coats even subtler chocolate-cocoa-molasses triage. Unripe fig-date souring, lightest rye toasting and latent tobacco nip provide mildly soft-toned Extra Special Bitter profile.
Middling canned ale suffers from tinny astringency, bland crystal malting and understated stylistic approach. Mild roasted hop bittering usurps casual orange-red fruiting. Tealeaf, lemongrass and citrus undertones soften bread-floured bottom of sessionable straw-hazed springtime fodder. On tap at Ambulance, sour yellow-fruited dry body goes awry due to musty barley graining, rotten vegetal musk and dirty earthen bottom. Lemony pineapple tartness and infrequent herbal spell lose steam to crusty rusticity.
First canned ale by Maine Brewery (circa 2011) is absolute hop-head delight! Piney Christmas tree waft matches “assertive hop profile” of bold full body. Expectant lemony grapefruit-orange rind bittering pervades juicy apricot-cherry-tangerine tang, picking up Granny Smith apple tartness alongside mineral-grained briskness. Honeyed caramel malting contrasts musty hop resin bottom of superfine fruit-enriched India Pale Ale.
Simple Maine-based canned ale goes right down the middle stylistically. Nose-tingling deep-grained hop spices complement easygoing caramel-toasted barleymalts. Delicately brisk orange-grapefruit bittering belies slightly tinny mainstreamer.
Celebrating 2011’s 14th anniversary of respected Bay Area brewer, IPA-like hop-charred citric bittering outweighs Cascadian Dark Ale-like oats-flaked mocha nuttiness for stylistic Black IPA. Piney grapefruit-peeled expectancy picks up resinous walnut, black coffee, black currant, black licorice and Blackstrap molasses illusions along the way, coating the lingered black tar aftertaste.
Coming on like a lighter-tongued German schwarzbier with its lactic sour-milked black chocolate creaming and cocoa-dried caramel nuttiness, this so-called ‘top-fermented old beer’ or ‘dopplesticke lager’ follows up Mad Scientist’s initial ‘09 barleywine and ‘10s coffee bock. Ancillary stone-fruited spicing overlays tobacco-roasted French bread crusting, enhancing the resinous mocha motif.
Crisp moderate-bodied aperitif boasts lemongrass, cardamom and India fenugreek spicing (with a splash of coriander), retaining briny-salted citric zing. Delicate herbal pungency picks up dried fig-plum confluence, lemony tangerine-clementine tang and ancillary tarragon-thyme-rosemary seasoning for briskly clean-watered Belgian wit. Its subtle herbal complexities go beyond traditional stylistic genus.
Complex Belgian strong pale ale drapes creamy caramel malts and candi-sugared Belgian yeast atop a not-so-subtle grapefruit-peeled pine-combed juniper bittering. Refreshingly floral-spiced mint stint splinters citric foundation.
Nifty orange-hazed Bavarian-styled weizenbock creates Bananas Foster theme with its creamy rum-spiced banana-clove entry. Ancillary lemony pineapple-mango briskness receives mustard-seeded ethanol burn. Banana cream pie, banana bread and banana pudding illusions glide by.
Crisply easygoing saison may have more character than brewers’ earliest farmhouse creations (as of December 2011). Spicy tangerine-apricot tang, lightly orange-spiced tartness and juicy pear proclivity contrast resinous earthen-hopped mineral-grained mustiness. Sunny summertime fruiting saturates shiny fresh-watered purity. Tertiary floral, pecan, and rye illusions scattered about.
Vigorously strong dark ale takes lactic schwarzbier-like maltose on a dried-fruited journey through smoked molasses malts. Incipient cocoa bean bittering receives complementary Belgian-spiced dark chocolate roast over black cherry, currant raisin, plum and fig undertones. Dirty earthen soiling and deep-roasted hop bittering secure rich bottom. On tap at Ambulance Brewhouse, complexities abounded. Belgian yeast-inspired chocolate spicing receives deeper dried fruiting as bruised blackberry, brambleberry and blueberry sugaring contrasts dry port-burgundy wining. Anise, chocolate cake and chocolate-covered cherry illusions seep thru.