On tap at Plank Pizza, sweet bourbon vanilla richness (of 13.6% ABV 2014 reserve – aged four years) thickened by anise-spiced brown chocolate malting, burnt caramel sugaring and ancillary cocoa reminder above mild hop-charred bittering of annual English-styled barleywine. Delicate port, burgundy and brandy wining finds space below alongside bruised cherry sedation.
On tap at Biggie’s, dry light-bodied marzen (formerly Goose Oktoberfest) greets dewy earthen peat with floral-spiced Hallertau hops and baked breaded rye malts. Dried apricot and orange illusions fade in the recess.
On tap at Plank Pizza, interestingly hybridized wine-barrel aged saison (with camouflaged 7.9 ABV) offers contagious brettanomyces-soured peach overtones to vinous white grape frisk and lemon-rotted orange, apricot, pineapple, gooseberry and tangerine tartness. Mild herbal perfumed citrus niche and residual lemongrass stint counteract musty barnyard rusticity just below dried peach adjunct.
On tap at The Oath, quaint wine-barreled farmhouse ale (with unassuming 9.5% ABV) brings bacterial brettanomyces-bound Champagne yeast souring to raw-honeyed lemon juicing, white-peppered hop pep, musky dried fruiting and murky strawberry adjunct. Vinous white grape tannins soak desiccated plum, pomegranate, white peach, crab apple and mandarin orange sedation above even dryer straw-hay-barnyard acridity . Not far removed from buckwheat honey mead styling.
Festive 2015 Christmastime brown ale blends “caramel and dark fruit malts,” picking up sharp hop astringency (50 IBU’s) and wily alcohol burn (7.7% ABV) to briefly overwhelm burgundy-dried fruit spicing. Dewy tobacco roast and dark chocolate mildness caress sugarplum, date, fig and raisin illusions as well as sweet orange peel spell. Subtle nutmeg, ginger and fennel wisps waver below.
