4.4 AROMA 9/10 APPEARANCE 5/5 TASTE 9/10 PALATE 4/5 OVERALL 17/20
October 2007. Cask at the Mercury Brewery in Ipswich, MA.
This is a fantastic brew. Smells of dark chocolate, alcohol, and heavy malts. Looks like deep, dark chocolate with a creamy brownish head. Feels thick in the mouth, light on the carbonation, and creamy like Guinness. Tastes of chocolate, some malt, and an aftertaste of alcohol. Very, very good, if you can get your hands on this at a Mercury Brewery function.
2.4 AROMA 6/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 4/10 PALATE 2/5 OVERALL 9/20
Cask at Brazen Head. Hazy brown, very still. Aroma shows loads of oaky character, vanilla, milk chocolate, and a touch of toasted malts. The flavour is decent with a light cocoa, some toast, and lots of oaky tannins. The palate is quite thin though. Light dill-like herbaceousness that I sometimes get from barrel-aged stuff. Meh… sometimes putting stuff in a barrel doesn’t make it any better.
2.2 AROMA 4/10 APPEARANCE 2/5 TASTE 4/10 PALATE 2/5 OVERALL 10/20
Cask at Brazen Head - this was the first beer of the afternoon for me, and it did NOT get me off on the right foot - semi-cloudy, rust-colored beer - faint aroma of damp wood, cheap whiskey and stale malts - very thin body, with nutty, slightly sweet caramel flavors from the brown ale that I could barely taste - the barrel beat all the life out of this beer - the flavor was dominated by wood, with tiny hints of booze - it pretty much tasted like I was, literally, sucking on the inside of a bourbon barrel - somewhat sour character in the finish that didn’t taste intentional, but actualy made the beer a little better - not good - not good at all.
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