Bold winter-seasoned India Pale Ale (in a can) offers moderate piney grapefruit bittering and sweet orange juicing to husky oats-dried rye malting. Sweet rye toasting deepens citric spicing at finish, picking up light pine nut smidge along the way.
INDEED OLD FRIEND HOLIDAY ALE (2015)
Uniquely designed holiday ale brings honey and ginger root adjuncts to spruce-tipped hop freshener, toasted caramel malting and dank cellar musk. Sweet orange peel briskness emerges alongside tertiary black cherry, raisin and fig illusions as well as wintry cinnamon-clove-nutmeg adjuncts at the busy eucalyptus-honeyed citrus finish.
INDEED MEXICAN HONEY IMPERIAL LAGER
Incongruent ‘Imperial Mexican lager’ brings raw-honeyed orange flowering to pastry-like buckwheat malting and complacent floral-citric Amarillo hops. Bordering on cloy due to its cloying sorghum, aspartame and butternut nuances. Subtle lemony orange tartness seems lost.
TIGHTHEAD BOXCAR PORTER
Thin English-styled porter pleats black patent-malted chocolate bittering with sour-milked lactose acidity, molasses-burnt wood char and dried cocoa powdering, retaining peaty soy saucing for better or worse. Light wood char sears latent walnut and cola nuances.
BARLEY JOHN’S OLD 8 PORTER
Gunky Baltic porter pours like coke syrup and maintains smoky dark-roasted mocha malting. Â Rich burnt molasses muddiness thickens black chocolate, dark cocoa and creamed coffee tones that register above ashen hemp-oiled hop bittering.
BARLEY JOHN’S WILD BRUNETTE WILD RICE BROWN ALE
Confounding wild-riced flagship nut brown brings soggy grain-roasted nuttiness and curious blood-soured mocha opulence to recessive rye malting and mild browned fruiting (desiccated fig, bosc pear, roasted grape, apple rot). Brown rice adjunct sweetens the fruitier aspects and maca-rooted chestnut roast.
FAIR STATE INDIA PALE ALE
Zesty yellow grapefruit juicing picks up citric rind bittering, dry pine lacquering and floral-perfumed tropicalia above grassy hop respite. Lemony pineapple, orange, nectarine, mango, papaya and tangerine tang sweetens grapefruit intrigue alongside syrupy crystal malts.
FAIR STATE SAISON DREI
“Rustic” saison brings stylish citric-soured farmhouse yeast funk to buttery French-breaded sourdough bottom, picking up dry herbal swerve. Sour-candied lemon pittance, coriander-spiced mandarin orange snip and white pinot grigio nuance waver beside barnyard hay-straw acridity.
FAIR STATE CROMULENCE
Intricately refreshing Berliner Weisse brings musty lactobacillus acidity to affluent lemon-rotted orange zest, sour yogurt spurt and dry saltine crisping. Funky farmhouse soiling adds musky leathering to tannic green grape, crabapple, passionfruit, raspberry, plantain and banana subsidies as well as white wheat base. Ratebeer’s Guerde rightly picked up dijon mustard illusion.
SURLY HELL LAGER
Not a particularly popular or convincing beer style since the musty pilsner malt breading and sourdough-skunked zwickel yeast musk defining this beloved Midwestern helles lager will put-off sweet-toothed imbibers (like Heineken oft-time does). Lemon-rotted sourness keeps floral-perfumed whim and metallic sheen at bay. Not a personal fave, but enjoyed by many German-influenced beer geeks.
MAGNIFY LOW VISIBILITY
On tap at End Of Elm, ‘uber juicy’ medium body allows sour lemon-seeded yellow grapefruit tang to invigorate mild floral-perfumed hop prickle while deepening dry wood tone. At finish, brusque citric overtones pick up latent marmalade tea herbage as well as setback tangerine, peach and mango illusions.
PEEKSKILL NYPA PALE ALE
On tap at Ambulance, crisply clean moderation offers raw-honeyed pale malting to brisk Mosaic-Citra hop tropicalia. Sharp yellow grapefruit prominence picks up pine-needled oak dryness as wispy mango-pineapple-orange subsidy gains foothold.