Damn, It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta!
Trinity Brewing Company

 

Deep, dark brown body; thin, wispy head. Heavy, heavy plum aroma; grape and licorice. Strong grape and plum flavor; prunes; very tart and sour. Medium body; mouth puckering.

A unique, palate-twisting dark sour. Very intriguing...

 

Who knew that sourness had a dark side? As the bright and tangy taste of sour ale meets the robust dark flavor of stout and Belgian dark ale means that a tart and dry taste supplants the richness in the beer yet the darkness in color and taste persists.

Damn, It Feels Good to be a Gansta is Trinity's version of this nonconforming ale, pouring with the dark burgundy of porter and quad. Light on froth, the bubbly beer teases the nose with char, dark fruit, coffee, cocoa and roasted embers. Its taste is toasty and lightly caramelized, coming across like coffee and cola at first sip.

With a lot of challenge and intrigue, the middle palate hosts a drying of the sweetness so that the dark grains may prevail. Stale toast, coffee grounds, cocoa and cola sheds its sweet taste and the peppery char of those flavors remain. Dark fruits of red grape, currant and blackberry all have a charred and slight smokiness as the finishing taste is equally bitter, winey and earthy.

Medium bodied and trending lighter and citrusy, a late development of cranberry and grapeseed bring an astringency that highlights the strong tannic bite of charred grain remnants to further reinforce the impressions of coffee and cocoa powder. Red wine and oak trail into a pungent taste of leather, tar and charred woods.

375ml red wax tipped bottle - wow, I was just discussing the merits of Office Space a few days ago, and bam! Now this.

This beer pours a clear, very dark brown cola colour, with one finger of puffy, loosely foamy, and mostly just bubbly tan head, which leaves pretty much nil in terms of lace anywhere near the glass as it quickly blows off.

It smells of sharp fruity acetic acid (raw lemons, or very underripe cherries), over-attenuated white wine, gritty cereal malts, a faint earthy sugary character, ethereal funk, an indistinct musty spiciness, and some very tame leafy and floral hop bitters. The taste is grainy and slightly bready pale malt, a lesser edgy wheatiness, clover honey, some complex grapiness, gently funky yeast, muddled tart fruity notes, a sense of zingy mustard seed, lightly besotted wood staves, and a further hint of metallic booziness.

The bubbles are fairly timid in their barely supportive frothiness, the body a decent medium weight, and sort of smooth, once you get acclimatized to the general tartness of this offering. It finishes off-dry, the fruity, malty, and honeyed characters still fencing with the sour and tart malingerers.

Overall, this is a decent sour American ale, and kind of the rejoinder to the 'naked' Saison that I had yesterday from this same brewery - yeah, lots of stuff added to this one, but it works, all blending into a nice whole. Complex, and fun to drink, for that reason - oh, and the laid-back Brett funk, that's a good reason, too!

 

 

C / AVERAGE

 

 

I don't consider myself particularly sensitive to these matters, and I had a lovely experience at the Trinity taproom, but, come on guys, you couldn't name this anything else?

It pours from a thick 12.7 ounce bottle. Er, it's glugs out all at once. Very little fizz, almost no head. Very dark, though.

Smells intense, off balance with its sourness but not unpleasant. Sharp acid and overripe fruit.

Tastes much more balance and beery. Sharp acid and fruit start things off, moving into a middle that's a straight-up, almost chocolately black ale. The barley and fruit interplay is super complex and surprisingly not pallet-scorching, and it segues nicely into a finish of medium-acidity fruit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

375 ml Bottle
Wax/Capped

Pour into a chalice a very nice dark brown color, nice carbonation, with a quick/fizzy off-white head, very minimal sticky lacing left behind. The nose is slightly malty, yeasty, funky, with very slight dark notes. The taste is pretty nice, funky, slightly malty, yeasty, sour/tart, with a very slight chocolate note. Medium body. Overall, a pretty tasty brew.