Midnight Marauder
Hoppin' Frog Brewery

Midnight Marauder from Hoppin’ Frog. 22 fl oz bottle, Rare Beer Club release. Purchased from Hoppin’ Frog, Akron, OH, 05/10/24. $ 10.69 (Including tax), $ 0.486/fl oz. Reviewed 11/12/24 (Review 3415). Note that I use DD/MM/YY protocol.
Undated bottle. Stored at 39 degrees F at home. Served at 52.8 degrees F in a hand washed and dried Jester King snifter. The final temperature was 57.0 degrees F.
Appearance – 4
First pour – Medium Amber (SRM 15), slight haze.
Body – Brown (SRM 20), opaque. Under direct light, same. When rear-lite, same with light penetration at the edges.
Head: Average (Maximum 3.9 cm, aggressive center pour), tan. High density. Slowly drops to a one cm crown and a heaped, rocky, cap. As the head retracts, it leaves an abundance of tight-knit lacing as well as an EKG-trace near the top of the glass.
Lacing – Excellent. Near-microscopic bubbles in both the (above) bands, which slowly devolve into lace curtains. Additional bands appear as the level drops.
Aroma – 4 – Clove phenols. No malt, no ethanol (10.4% ABV, as marked on label). No disulfide or diacetyl.
Flavor – 4 – Begins with weak malt and phenols, less clove-like. No hops, no alcohol. No disulfides, no diacetyl.
Palate – 4 – Medium; watery approaching creamy; lively carbonation.
Style: Sort of follows the style guidelines as condensed by BA, but this somewhat of an experimental beer, so ...
Final impression and summation: 3.75 (After deducting 0.25 point for an undated personal container) Has some weak clove phenols but lacks the funk frequently found in saisons. Also, the malty presence is odd. Not a bad beer, just … unusual.

Appearance is a sort of dull mahogany to foggy dark brown with a tall khaki foam head that settles slowly and retains as a lumpy blanket.

Smell is a mix of coffee roast, clovey Belgian phenols and a sort of tangy and bright weizenbock bite.

Taste is roastier and a little more hoppy and bitter, herbal and woody, with an almost pinewood fire that's quite warming down the gullet.

The medium-light but frothy body finishes semi-dry.

Despite them labelling it as a dark saison, this is another intriguing experiment by Hoppin' Frog that doesn't really fit into any one style guideline.