Son Of The Morning
Driftwood Brewery

Pours a clear golden with a finger plus of white tight bubbly head.
Aroma of Belgian yeast, fruity/juicy fruit with notes of spice - clove, coriander, lemon drop - phenolic and a whiff of booziness.
Spicy, fruity - note of juicy fruit gum - Belgian yeast - candy sugar sweetness pushes back against the coriander and clove notes, with a boozy heat.
Effervescent carbonation - sweet full mouthfeel with a spicy fruity alcoholic finish.

 

Another interesting offering from Driftwood. Seriously, what's not to like about Fat Tug, Raised By Wolves, Sartori Harvest and so on from that brewery? Well, maybe is the strong Belgian style not their forte? Strong for sure. Hiding that alcohol? Not very well. Very spicy and strong. Not bad but could use a little refinement if not going away from the style altogether. This is very boosy for a 10% ale. Not bad, but not great.

Clear amber color
Light aromas
Pleasantly sweet and rich taste, with caramel notes. 10% alcohol hidden behind taste very well.
Moderate carbonation, smooth and delightful mouth-feel
This is an awesome beer, deceivingly normal appearance hides a deep and satisfying experience.

Compared to Tripel Karmeliet, it's a much less bitter version but as tasty!

 

Bright gold; flowers, rubber bands + earth with a touch of clove; lagery grain, more phenols, pear, tart lemon, oil + some herb, rubber + papaya end.

4 4 3.75 4 4

Clean, if a bit high on the phenols. As a Duvel clone, missing the grace. But decent.

 

 

 

 

 

Not a fan of Canadian brewed Belgian pales, but this ones fantastic. Very clean with the typical Belgiany flavours. Could definitely compete with some of Belgium's top strong pales.

 

Appearance: Pours a slightly clear-hazy amber like the morning sun (pun totally intended). Tops off with a generous bubbly white head that dissipates a fairly quickly but leaves behind a good surface of foam and a great ring with good lacing.

Aromatics: Full of fresh bread and yeast, I get a few scents of mellow non-sour lemon citrus, some apricot, and fresh grass that borders on pine. All these scents inter-mingle with one another and all seem to appear simultaneously. I also detected an ever so subtle hint of medicine at the very end (or my nose was playing tricks on me).

Taste: A surprisingly tangy and spicy. There are tings of pepper and clove under all the earthy green hops. What malts are used are used very well to keep the bitterness in check

Feel: A fairly good middleweight contender; it doesn’t try to over do itself. Somewhat sticky, almost juice-like texture. Gentle carbonation remains active so it is not overly smooth but its snap and crackle are very refreshing yet warming (like the morning son). And it’s finish is nice and dry with just a little of the hops bitterness left behind, next to none of the booziness.

Overall: It hides it’s 10% ABV really really well. Loved it. The new label design (2015 version) is wickedly cool which is why I bought it in the first place. Because it is a fairly good ABV and that ABV is very well hidden I can easily see picking this one up as a regular. As for my pairing suggestion on this one - I’m at a loss, but I think a good plate of nachos (too much cheese will amplify the bread flavours) so the cheese should be thinly placed and baked crisp, and has to have ample jalapenos and/or a medium to hot salsa (with a little sour cream on the side) this will probably balance out the bready-ness and play off the spicy undertones.

Appearance - Pours a clear pale amber with two fingers of frothy, bubbly white head.

Smell - Belgian yeast, clove, candied sugar, floral and spicy hops, grainy malts, pear, apple.

Taste - Surprised by the level of floral/spicy hop bitterness in this, followed along by the yeast, malt, and fruit characteristics. Light alcohol taste.

Mouthfeel - Medium bodied with high carbonation. Alcohol warmth. Finishes dry with lingering hop bitterness.

Overall - Although I feel that the boxes have been checked in regards to style, I believe that there could be some more work done to make this even better. I was disappointed by the head retention on this one as well. Not bad, but not the most memorable.

 

 

Well, this one is a swing and a miss for me.

Nothing really works here and the over amped alcohol really gets in the way. I am glad I shared the bottle at a tasting with two other guys.

It came across to me like a very inelegant La Fin du Monde - no offence to Unibroue.

This is the first beer by Driftwood I didn't like. And I've had pretty much all of them.

 

 

 

 

10% abv, N/A ibu, 650ml bottle.
A - clear golden (orange) with one finger white head, not really lingering lacing.
S - malt, bubblegum, banana, pineapple, toffee, candy, butter, yeasty, tart. syrup, floral, earthy, peppery spice.
T - moderate carbonation, smooth, sticky honey mouthful. pineapple bubblegum. grassy hoppy, refreshing. sweet, fruity like juice. malty as it warms up. sweetness lingering tongue.
O - delicious strong beer! alcohol is really really well hidden, yet u can feel the heat. another great special release from driftwood, of course the label design, and the satan ingredient. worth to try.

Poured from a 650ml bottle,it has the new label for 2016 very cool art work.
A: Pours a Clear Golden with a thick white head tons of lacing that sticks.
S: A sweet spice nose
T: Big sweet hit almost a sour to me the coriander is there.
F: Big carbonation and a warm sweet in the mouth.
O: Ok somewhat sweet for me,strong at 10%

L: Pale yellow with a high amount of carbination flowing up the glass. Has a nice white head that leaves small amount of lacing down the glass and a slight white head that seems to stay for most of the beer.

S: Kinda sweet with a slight coriander smell to it as well.

T: Fairly sweet with a nice amount of malt to it has a little coriander taste to it. Has a slight bitterness to it as well.

F: Almost to high of an amount of carbination to it. It has a strange taste to it.

O: It's an OK beer probably not one I would buy again :/

 

 

 

 

 

 

650ml bottle, with another of those strange, splashy, and new black metal album-esque labels, that make it very hard to discern the name - no biggie.

This beer pours a clear, bright pale golden yellow colour, with a teeming tower of puffy, finely foamy, and somewhat creamy off-white head, which leaves some chunky and sudsy splattered lace around the glass as it slowly sinks away.

It smells of edgy, and slightly phenolic Belgian yeast, gritty pale and wheat malt, white pepper and semi-sweet coriander spice, a twinge of earthy and floral bitterness, and yes, a hearty sense of the booze not yet revealed. The taste is bready and doughy pale malt, a lesser wheaty graininess, now kind of muddled earthy spice, ethereal field honey, a suggestion of over-attenuated apple cider, and more sidling, but not quite yet alighting metallic alcohol astringency.

The carbonation is fairly active in its roundabout and slightly probing frothiness, the body an adequate medium weight, and not particularly smooth, as per the style, IMHO - that typically heightened ABV hard to reign in as such. It finishes off-dry, the sweetness of the inherent mutt-ish malt, put-upon fruitiness, and simmering booziness all attesting to the fact.

At times, I'm not altogether sure of any tangible differences between Tripels and BSPAs - there's the plain and grainy malt, the understated light fruitiness, some perhaps pushy spice, and uber alles, a threatening, if not always egregious alcohol stripe. All of that seems to run amok here, but in a typically restrained Canadian manner, so, um, good, I guess.

 

 

 

 

22oz bottle, muled back from Victoria BC; split

appearance: served in my ale asylum chalice - clear straw-golden body, healthy white foam with light lace

smell: belgian yeast, white pepper, spice, booze

taste: sweet and boozy - a little hot for my taste. white pepper, corriander, spice, belgian yeast, clove, candy, sweet malt

mouthfeel: prickly carbonation, a bit boozy

overall: pretty average for driftwood