Pallet Trick
Black Raven Brewing Co.

Rated 6-1-2025 Pours a golden/orange color with a medium head that turns to lacing. Aroma is fruity & sweet, as is taste. there is a slight bitterness in the middle, but overall great beer. BOD 4-24-2024

really cool collaboration and a really great idea for a beer, sort of combining and modernizing their two flagship ipa offerings, if which i have always preferred the barley browns. a brassy toned and mostly clear draft pour with a white head of average height but gorgeous lacing as it drinks down, not too malty looking but a bit of color. lots of cool hops in the nose and taste here, northwestern and bitter still, piney and dank, spruce and gin and weed and woods, love all that, and its familiar, a grapefruit note too when it warms up a little, but the loral and strata are the elements that make this more interesting than just being a sort of fusion of these two classics. the loral adds almost noble spiciness to me, it sets the back end bitterness up extremely well, so fresh but also kind of lightens it, and its cool this somewhat more delicate hop is not at all lost to the big boys in this recipe, nicely used. the strata is good too in here, juicy and bright, makes this modern as well, but this is like the new mosaic and citra, literally showing up in every single ipa lately, its uniqueness may be gone for my palate, but i still dig what it does to this and its easy to appreciate why its becoming a staple so fast. notes of peach, lemon curd, and fir needles intermingle, light toast and nuttiness to the grain, some middle sweetness, nothing from yeast to me and quite a lot of structure overall. some oiliness, weedy a bit, dried apricot and mango, clover and grass, lemongrass, its both juicy and intense, but also i dont want to set my glass down at all. real nice collaboration overall, a pint beer and a rewarding one, cool idea for the project and nice execution. id stock this in my fridge for awhile if i could find it in packaged form...

2024-06-19
Pint at Brouwer's. Very west coast, but in a way I don't appreciate. Not sure why. Maybe leans too hard into the cat piss direction. Don't think I want to finish, with better options all over.

Handsome clear darker amber with adequate foam in the Chimay chalice. Quite aromatic with citrus. Thickish malty body with modest spritz. Big citrus and fruit galore. Maybe it's just a lot of pineapple and a shot of 151 rum. Tastes stronger than the ABV. Kind of sweet in a nice way, like candied grapefruit peel. Moderate bitterness with the lingering fruity taste. Really not bad, but another IPA where more is not necessarily better, and the bitterness does seem to amplify as you sip. From the 16 oz can purchased at Elizabeth Station. Dated 04/16/24.

Canned 4/16/24. Pours a clear medium amber with a finger or two of frothy foam. Pick up piney aromas with a bit of dankness. Up front hop-flavors combine to produce a tasty WCIPA. Feel and finish are well done. The ABV is spot on at 6.5%. If you see some, pick 'em up.