On tap at Ambulance, oaken cherry tartness and salted miso pasting sourly contrast honeyed chamomile tea sweetness for uniquely experimental orange-burnt rosy pink IPA crossed with a splendid French-wined cuvee. Dry white grape, crabapple and salted plum subtleties recede beneath tart cherry rhubarb finish.
On tap at Dog & Cask, generously soured oak-barreled version of brewers’ Judgement Day Quad brings leathery brettanomyces funk, vinous green grape tannins and juicy lemon rind tartness to raisin-pureed plum, raspberry and cherry fruiting, soaking up its candi-sugared sweetness with raw molasses bittering. Serve to Flanders Brown Ale fans.
On tap at Poor Henry’s, vibrant limited edition cuvee blends three vintage ales with wild yeast for tannic wine-soured champagne appeal, lightly vinous white grape tartness and tidy green apple pucker.
Elegantly contoured moderate-bodied Belgian cuvee delivers marvelous French-wined grape esters to creamy vanilla-sweetened banana daiquiri whir and wildflower-honeyed rum spicing. Buttery Chardonnay warmth lingers beside crystalline lemon-curried saffron and kaffir lime riffs. French Pyronees espelette peppers softly embitter herbal hop slot.
Rewarding dark Belgian-styled ale with dry-fruited spicing and smoked cocoa malting blitzing dramatic rum-sugared bourbon, burgundy, and Merlot wining. Subsequent earthen grape-stemmed fig-date-prune souring receives cocoa-powdered black chocolate reverberation buttressing mild orange peel bittering.
Soothing copper-hazed cask-conditioned alcohol-licked strong ale celebrates 2005 with oak-dried grassy-bottomed citric moderation. Waning butterscotch intro accrues residual floral bouquet, toned down herbal spicing, and tertiary apricot-tangerine tinge. Musty fungus smell doesn’t negatively affect sour yeast retrenchment.
Dazzling butterscotch-hazed, dry-bodied, Saison-styled ale with ‘edible flowers’ increasing champagne-fizzed honeyed yeast affirmation and vanilla wafer-clad backdrop. Floral lavender-jasmine-rosebud-tulip stead augments ample clove-chamomile-peppermint seasoning rewarding ripe pineapple-apricot-mango-marmalade medley as grass-hay-horsehide waft simmers appreciable vinegar souring. Perfectly balanced flavor exchange allows endless fruity illusions (white peach, tangerine, citron, banana) to arise. Compares favorably to similarly ‘flowered’ gruit beers.
Unexpectedly frothy sienna-hued amber-highlighted ‘strong dark’ Belgian ale cascades to fleshy head, bringing creamy milk stout peculiarities such as decorative cocoa-chocolate sweetness and roasted nuttiness to loudly resonating raisin thicket. As glass empties, inconstant web-like lace forms and earthy astringency approaches.
Eccentric Scotch-malted fruit-hopped copper-hued dry body saturates mellow apple cider tartness and ripe prune footnote with creamy butterscotch sweetness. Tertiary berry, cherry and mandarin orange illusions decorate sinewy yeast-candied center.
Dryly vinous bottle-conditioned amber-hued ‘rousse de garde’ weaves sweet honeyed malts through floral-hopped rose-daisy-violet illusions and earthy hay-horsehide parch. Pulpy orange tang enhances complex finish daubed by deferred cinammon-clove-coriander wintry spicing.
Bleak sour yogurt aroma never negatively affects creamy butterscotch palate and clove-peppered elegance informing fetching yeast-addled sweetness of strong pale ale (not far removed from French cuvee wine style). Well carbonated champagne flow catches attention, but vague berry-apple fruitiness and muted white wine finish dim overall prospect.