3.5 AROMA 7/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 7/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 14/20
Cask pour on tap at Fountainhead (Chicago, IL). Pours a deeper dark hazy ruby copper pour side-by-side with a small regular Iron Works. A big cakey tannish head, a bit reddish, cakes and stays quite large. Aromas are a deeper sweet malt, fruits and toffee, caramel, and toasty biscuits with a touch of spice, vanilla, faint brown sugar. Light grassy hops and pear. Initial is medium bodied, throwing toast and caramel, toffee, and biscuits, a touch of maraschino cherry, apple, and spice. A touch of warming alcohol, more sweet malts that preach a sharper toast on the palate, good caramel, really toasty and dry up front moving into a surprising bitter floral and grass hop finish that works with synergy with the toastiness. Much more intense in toast and hops, warming spirit. Really nice bigger warming beer, the cask rubs the edges and loosens it up. Finish is toasty, sweet malts, and toffee. Nice beer, big and warming. Probably not the best season for it. But it is quite nice, and a warming cask beer. Liked it a touch more than regular Iron Works, but they are completely different beers. This one brings the "oomph", but the base Iron Works works much better in this weather. Nice experiment.
3.9 AROMA 7/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 8/10 PALATE 4/5 OVERALL 16/20
Draft at Fountainhead. This was a really cool beer. Pours a really deep brownish copper with fluffy head. Nose is somewhat spicy, doughy and has a nice bready melanoidin note as well. Some hop aromatics also present, somewhat woody. On taste, bitter. very bitter. Lots of burly malt that is nicely balanced by the hops. Malt bill is a bit one dimensional, but the mouthfeel is really nice. Some nice round toasty notes come through as well. Pretty cool beer.
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