Just a quick snapshot of what I have been drinking lately - it's my colleague Christine's homebrewed ale, vintage 2014. It's a 5.4% ABV ale brewed in the Oktoberfest style. Since it's been aging for over a year now, it's kind of an experiment to see how it turned out...most commercially-available beers are sealed mechanically, but as you can see, this is in repurposed bottle. Sealing by hand is an imperfect process, which can be a risk with some homebrews. But - as ever the optimist - I'll happily give it a spin.
It cracks open nicely, with a quiet hiss of carbonation. That's good sign #1. If it didn't, well, not always a bad thing, but the fact that it did shows me the bottle is sealed nicely. There's a good seal so likely no leakage. It's also in a brown bottle, which is better at blocking lower-wavelength light, which recalling your high school physics class you may remember that lower-wavelength light contains more energy. Light damages beer and wine no matter what, but higher-energy light can damage beer quicker. That's good sign #2.
Pours quickly, leaving a solid 1/4 inch of bone-white head on the pour. Aroma is faintly of spice and alcohol. The color is murky brown, not something I'd expect from an Oktoberfest, but that's okay. It's not chunky or smelly or green, so that's good sign #3.
It's rather biscuity - a muted ale with some spice notes and a little bit of dark fruit cassis, kinda like what I'd expect in a red wine. It's not skunky or anything, just very dank, deep, and sweet. Aging can do some strange stuff to beer, but in this case I think the time it spent in the bottle certainly mellowed it, and changed some of the textures and flavors pretty significantly to almost a different kind of beer.
This reminds me a lot of the King Crimson, but the vintage one I reviewed last year. It has that same mellowness of flavor, heavy malt aspect, and dank character, all of which I enjoy. I'd say this is a pleasant divergence from the usual crisp-and-coppery Oktoberfest.
No comments:
Post a Comment