Red Zone Enigma
The Twisted Hop

Bottle from Hashigo Zake

Mahogany, capped by a small but resilient saffron head that reforms on swirling.

Masses of syrupy treacle-esque sweetness, constituted by aromas of stewed plums, raisins, brandied strawberries, liquorice, baked toffee, some raw solvent-like booze and a touch of signature barleywine pungency.

Borderline sickly fortified sweetness overwhelms pretty much everything. Reminiscent of very sweet sherry and about as drinkable. Boatloads of strawberry syrup.

Body is only moderate given the massive sweetness, yet it dries out somewhat on the palate. A bit odd. Relatively mild carbonation.

Comes across as a carbonated "sticky" dessert wine, and if consumed in quantities typical for such a beverage (i.e. 2oz as opposed to 12oz) would quite possibly be more enjoyable. Just far too cloying and lacking in complexity to stay enthused about a full bottle.

Bottle from wellington shop. Apparently this was a batch of Enigma that was being brewed, and then the earthquake shut down, and destroyed downtown Christchurch. Somehow they got to the batch and were able to bottle it about 6 months after... The brewery is still in the red zone, and off limits now. Expensive as shit, $16 a 12 oz bottle, so maybe they are trying to recoup some losses?
Anyway, on to it.
Pours a dark mahogany brown color with about half a finger of head. Decent lacing that sticks around a while.
Nose is candy sugar, figs, caramel malts... hops not too present... not too bad.
Taste is a lot like the nose, a lot of fig, not as sweet as the nose would imply, caramel malt is also not as present. Very well balanced, and quite nice actually.
medium mouthfeel, nicely carbed. One of the better english styles I have had. the extra time in the fermenters has done this quite well. Pre-aged so to speak. Not worth the hefty price tag, but feels kinda nice to support this great brewery on their last bottling...