Moa Noir

11-Mar-08 (12.7 oz bottle: Purchased 10-Feb-08 for $5.69 at City Beer in San Francisco, CA) This seems to be a rather fancy bottle (and a large price tag) for just a simple dark lager. Once the oversized cap is removed and the beer is poured, it smells rather chocolaty, lightly roasty, mildly sweet, but also a bit sour and perhaps showing a touch of acetaldehyde. Tasting the beer, the non-sweet chocolate and mild roast set the core flavors, but it is a bit sour as well, with hints of apple skins in the finish. Medium in weight from start to finish, but the medium-strong carbonation is a bit too forceful and there is a slight, roasty astringency in the finish. Dark ruby in color and fully clear, capped by a tall, fluffy, light-tan head that shows wonderful persistence, never losing a complete layer atop the beer. This beer seems to have some nice potential, but the perception of off-flavors is a distraction.

Smokey malt aroma with sweet undertones. Dark brown colour with great head and lacing. Sweet malt smokey flavour with beacon. Smooth palate.

Bottle - 375ml. Cloudy dark amber body with average carbonation and a good beige foamy head. Nice malty/hoppy aroma with yeasty, citrusy and grainy hints. Its decent hoppy taste carries some roasty notes. Ends with a short bitter finish. That one is very hard to categorize as it looks and smells like a Dunkelweizen, but tastes like a Dark Lager or a Vienna. Interesting.

Blindtasting at Papsoe. Bottle. Hazy brown colour with a little nice head. Aroma of caramel, munic and toffee. Flavour of malt, munich malt and caramel. Nice tasty flavour, that ends up quite bitter.

Bottled. An unclear dark amber beer with a lazing orangey head. The aroma is sweet malty with hints of caramel. The flavor is has grassy notes of hops, cardboard, malt, and caramel, leading to a bitter finish. The body is thin. Thanks Papsoe for hauling this home to Denmark and sharing.