Friar's Sahib
Whitstran Brewing Company

Poured from a 12 oz. bottle into a Seattle Beer Week pint glass. Pours a medium red amber with a thin off-white head that dissipates in rapid carbonation, eventually settling to a thin patchy head with traces of lacing. Nice caramel aroma with hints of cherry and plum and light grassy hops. Flavor of caramel malt, dark fruit, grassy hops with a mild medicinal component. Finishes astringently bitter with residual malt and unexpected clove flavor. Medium bodied with light carbonation. An odd IIPA that seems to want to blend Belgian dark elements with IPA hopping and malt. The flavors do not quite play well together and the combination of clove and hop bitterness in the finish are too medicinal. Interesting to try, but needs some tweeking to work as intended. This is likely to be an old bottle, age and storage unknown. Since there is no dating on the bottle, I'm reviewing it anyway as there is no way to know. It's odd and intriguing enough that I would try it again if I knew it was fresh to see how fresh hops would work in this combination.