Hop Project 06300
Sly Fox Brewing Company

 

 

This beer was served from the cask at Tap and Mallet in Rochester, NY. It arrived in a Blue Point pint glass, glowing a golden honey coloring. It held a one finger head of tan bubbles, depositing spots and flecks of lacing around the glass as it receded at a medium pace. A definite haze pierced the beer’s clarity, but no sediment was noted. Carbonation appeared light. The nose was filled with citric and floral hops, pale malts and lightly toasted grain, lemon zest, raw sesame seeds, white flour, and the wet metallic zing of yeast. Further warmth gave light woodiness from the cask, sweaty saltiness, and big sweetness in the form of apple sugars, apricot, cranberry, fresh caramel, and sweet booze. Our first impression was that the flavoring showed a nicely bittering bite of hops to hit hard against a paler malty wash, with an additional flash of woodiness from the cask to mix. As we sipped, the flavoring opened with bready graininess, woody bitterness, lemon and grapefruit hoppiness, candied lemon sweetness, basement mustiness, light caramels, and big lactic acidity. The middle peaked with peppery booze to quickly cut, bittered grassy hops, chalky bite of pale and adjuncty grain, plum syrups, and tannic dryness of lemon breakfast tea. This lemony pucker pulled us to the finish, where zest, sourdough breadiness, booze, savory saltiness, barley, light chalky wheatiness, mineral, and musk blended to cut out all remaining hoppiness, and mute the palate. The aftertaste breathed of grassy and citric hops, pale grains, toasted adjuncts, mustiness, alcohol, lactics, woody dryness, and medicinal phenols. The body was medium, and the carbonation was light. Each sip gave good slurp and smack, but pop, cream, and froth were minimal as the beer was a bit flat. The mouth was crisply coated, giving way to quickly astringent dryness down the palate and tongue. The abv was appropriate, and the beer drank easily.

Overall, the best thing about this beer was the curiously complex aroma and even flavoring, both contributing nicely to ease of drinkability. The fruits and rather deep maltiness lent well through the flavoring, while the cask added nice warmth, bite, pucker, and general seriousness. The feel was also nice to this fact, and helped keep you wanting another sip, but it was the interesting blend through the aroma (fruity, soured, rotten, sticky, candied, flowery) that kept you definitely coming back, even if only just to see if you could figure out what was really going on here.