Sprecher Shakparo Ale

16 oz. bottle. Deeply cloudy orange-peach color with a lasting eight-inch disc of bubbles. Belgian-like aroma of cheese, earth-spiced tart apples and bananas baked in brown sugar. Tastes of funk, peppermint stick, cardboard, banana, and apple cider. A bitter medicinal finish of cardboard, minty tongue depressor and lemon coughdrop. Light-medium body is fizzy and finishes very dry.

Hazy yellow to amber with a thin white head. Aroma of toasted malt, sorghum, banana and other assorted fruits and some sweet malt, er, millet. Taste is in a word… strange. Sorghum, fruit, mildly metallic, mildly fruity. Church wafer aspects creep into mind. Kind of thin. Good thing they put it into a big 16oz bottle because it is a bit tough to drink the whole thing. 8 oz would have been more than enough.

I suppose that this is a standard of the African nation of beer, yet this has some funk with flavors of weak malts, slightly metal and the a touch of tart, cant get in to this one.

The aroma is metallic, with yeast, funk, grains, and rotten fruit. The appearance is cloudy gold with a small but persistent head. The flavor is gross and like the aroma. The palate is smooth. This is hard to drink.

16oz bottle from Sheps Deli (Tampa, FL). Pours a light brownish yellow color with a white head. Aroma is sweet and spicy with notes of honey, vinegar, white grapes, worchestershire, and a slight boozey musty note. Flavor is interesting. Notes of spice, banana and shag carpet that transition to a strange slightly sweet earthiness. Generally light body with a really strange finish.

500ml bottle. Cloudy orange tan color. Sweet artificial mango aroma. I have really found sorghum beers to be quite unappealing. This one is no exception. The aroma is really a killer. Would be acceptable if you were in West Africa. An interesting style choice, but one Id certainly never buy again.

Courtesy of keifdog. Pours hazy gold with wafer thin head. The aroma is sweet with fruity apple notes, vegetables, somehow sweetness but coming from what I don’t know and wet cement. Certainly an odd start to things. The flavor is just as different as the aroma with the same fruity notes, odd wet cement earthiness, mild acidity, a bit of plastic bag and a mixture of gravel. Anyway.

Courtesy of keifdog. Talking about something totally different. This one replaces wheat and barley by sorghum and millet. I appreciate Sprecher for their initiative as this beer really takes an open mind to really appreciate it. The taste was just unique. Aroma was totally different than usual, of honey Taste was a mix of spices and smoke. While not horrible, the beer is on a league of its own as it will challenge all your taste buds to even dare finishing a small sampler.