Mountain Goat Before the Dawn

Brewed by Mountain Goat Beer
Style: Black IPA
Richmond, Victoria, Australia

Serve in Shaker, Tulip

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From a 640ml bottle- Two of my favourite styles but together can’t do any better than that.

From a 640ml bottle on 28/11/2012. Pours a very dark brown with a medium head. Has a relatively light but pleasant aroma featuring sweet dark fruit (prunes) and a dash of piney hops. Fantastic flavours greet you when you take a sip. You get typical IPA citrus fruits, along with some dark fruit, chocolate, a little espresso, toffee and a touch of licorice. Finishes with a medium to firm hop bitterness, with some distinct roasty notes. This is a very nice black IPA. Mountain Goat are getting quite good at delivering quality hop driven brews.

Bottle from Mane Liquor. Pours jet black with a medium, dense lightly tanned head leaving great lacing. Nose is smack full of piney hops and light bitter sweet chocolate undertones. A hint of liquorice as it warms. The chocolate and pine are balanced in the taste. Liquorice slowly takes over with warmth. Super easy drinking. Solid stuff

HTH with Yakima Raven (liberty/yeastie boys). Unfortunately this comes up second best. However, it is a great beer. Good flavours and balance but not as tasty as hoped.

By 640ml bottle from Archive Brisbane. Nearly black, just a bit of red dawn poking through under a tight light brown cover. Gee my, aren’t we lucky here in Australia to have brewers that create beer like this! Just sensational, if you like black IPA’s please try it. Please Brewers@Mountain Goat re release the Pepperberry IPA.

(Bottle) Clear dark brown with beige head, initially big an loose settling to small, tighter and persistent. Excellent aroma in style of IPA with plenty of hops giving dominant citrus with notes of pine / resin, grass and toffee. Lovely mouth filling carbonation gives great mouthfeel. On the lighter side of medium bodied, but somewhat hard to judge in presence of fine carbonation. Flavour is very impressive. Starts with grapefruit citrus which stays clearly in the background as other flavours come to the fore. The tastes that develop include toffee, chocolate and coffee which develop into a long bitter finish. This is a well rounded bitterness with hoppy bite and darker black coffee bitter notes. Overall an excellent beer. Dark IPA seems to be in vogue and this is a very good example. It’s predominantly IPA but with lovely balancing roasted malt flavours.

650mL bottle. Pours pitch black with an off white head and an amazing hoppy grapefruit/citrus aroma with a nice coffee bean hint. Amazing grapefruit flavour with grassy notes. I love this beer, the hop is the star as it should be and the darker malts only add a slight creamy coffee hint.

Not in the class of the Thorny Goat. Lean palate, by comparison, with more obvious hops drying out the palate. Cut grass and roast on the nose, both of which are subtle. Some smoke and slate in the back palate provides some interest but otherwise a bit pedestrian.

Sampled at an ESBLS tasting. It poured a black color with a foamy tan head. The aroma was of caramel, chocolate, a little cocoa and a touch of grassiness. The taste was similar with sweetness, but bitter and hung around for a while. A very good Black IPA.

Pours dark brown with a large, lasting head. Nose shows a fair bit of grapefruit and tropical fruit-like hops. Underneath is some roasted malt. Also some resinous notes. Pretty rad! Fairly roasty flavours but still quite approachable (especially for a BIPA!). Lots of hops in there too, providing big tropical fruit flavours. Excellent balance between the hops and roasted malt. Could use a bit more carbonation. Amazing stuff.