So, this is it. I'm writing my first notes for a beer from Brooklyn, NY. When I first saw this bottle on the liquor store shelf I knew that I'm going to get two beers at once. Firstly because of the sheer size of the bottle (0,75 liters... it's not a big bottle...? With 9,0 % alcohol...? No?! Damn you!). Secondly because the beer is 100 % bottle fermented. This means that there are a lot of sediments on the beer. I got this tip from a TV show (don't remember the name but it was about tasking beers) that you should pour the beer first gently to the glass and taste it. After that you can mix what's left in the bottle and pour it to the glass and voilà! You have yourself another beer in front of you! In this case you can drink one (or even two) glasses poured gently and then try this. Take my advice, it really opens up new worlds! The bottle has a cork cap such as champagne bottles.
Anyway, the beer is brewed by the Brooklyn brewing company (http://www.brooklynbrewery.com/) that produces a wide range of fine beers to my taste at least. It has been around from 1988 so even I am older than the brewery. This means also that it hasn't got any heritage as a burden to make exactly the same kinds of beers as our fore fathers did 300 years ago, and don't take it so that I wouldn't like the old recipes. There is a time and place for those as well.
As mentioned earlier it has 9 % of alcohol which makes this a beer a beast after which you definitely are in no shape of driving or operating any types of heavy machinery. I don't want to lecture because this blog is not about that. The color is reddish brown and bleary even on the first gentle pour. The scent is well protected by the well formed foam so you might want to smell it from the bottle. The scent, once I found it was spicy and sweet with a hint of roasted malt on it. You don't notice the high alcohol level on the taste which is a pleasant surprise. On the first pour you can really notice the roasted malt in the flavor with the well balanced nuttiness. The spiciness comes next with the pleasant sweetness on many layers, syrup as one of them. This must come from the Belgian dark sugar and raw wildflower honey from NY used in it. The hops used in this beer come from Europe as well as the malts. The level of hops is very well in balance with rest of the tastes.
Act two: pour the yeast and sediments to the glass. The color gets lighter and you get more foam. The sweetness increases both on the scent and taste as well as the spiciness. The aftertaste gets some lemony lightness.
In the end this was a really nice experience from one of my favorite breweries. It's also a nice mixture of Belgian and American style, Belgian being on the top. Stays really stable till the last drop. Goes to the Top 10 on my list of tasted beers!
Coming up in the near future, among others are these twins...
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