Thunder Canyon Cerberus

Brewed by Thunder Canyon Brewery
Style: Fruit Beer
Tucson, Arizona USA

Serve in Flute, Shaker

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On tap Sept 2012 pours gold with a medium white head. Nose is pale grains and white grape juice. Flavor is same with mild white wine notes.

Arrives from the tap with a frothy, pale amber tinged, off-white colored head. The beer has a lightly hazed, full amber color that shows a bit of gold around the edges. The aroma has a certain grainy, beery note to it that I associate with staling in the tap lines. Cracker like brown grain notes, a wheat like character, touches of brown bread sweet aromatics, for some reason the aroma really isn’t all that distinct. As the beer warms up more of a general fruitiness starts to come out and it does even seem to be grapelike; seems more like fermented green table grapes than anything else I can think of.

The beer is quite dry up front, and again has that cheap, beery character to it that really lingers in the finish: is it stale tap lines and the fact that this might be the first beer served from this tap today, or is it that the beer has a cheap malt-liquor flavor to it. Touches of fermented grape like fruitiness is present in the finish, and this actually seems to accentuate the malt-liquor like finish. Really reminds me of the finish in a somewhat oxidized, bargain box wine. Touches of whole grain crackers, and a hint of bread-like character isn’t quite as noticeable as it is in the aroma. There is a touch of sweetness to this beer that perks up in the middle, but over all it is fairly dry. The body is fairly light, there is a touch of fullness here, but this is definitely on the light side of the spectrum.

Not horrible, but the grape / vinous character really seems to take this beer in a direction that it shouldn’t be going. I am curious if this could be transformed into a sour beer by some barrel and bug time. In the flavor the grape influence is likely the dominant character.