Mustafa's Dancing Helmet
Moon Dog Craft Brewery

440ml can from Curious Liquids (£4.25):
Light golden amber with quite a large, foamy white head that holds well & seems quite thick. It's sharp & tangy on the nose with citrus, mango, banana & gsint lactose too with a floral hop bitterness base. Again the citrus is strong with the taste, there's some oats & lactose showing with grapefruit & floral hops towards the end. It's sharp, medium bodied & not the worse for a milkshake DIPA with a little sweetness towards the end too but I wouldn't rush back to it.

Appearance - poured into tulip glass. Pours Amber / golden coloured, cloudy with sediment, minimal bubbles. Aroma - smells of apricot, not overwhelming smell. Taste - as expected from the smell, fairly mild with apricot elements, appreciate the hoppiness. Feel - neither astringent or creamy, no warmth or coolness. Overall - I appreciate this beer, whilst not my first choice in beer definitely one of my more favourite IPAs. Attracted to the beer due to recent tasting of moon dog beer at a beer festival.

Bottle: solid brown 330mL bottle, typically funky Moon Dog label.

Appearance: pours out a golden amber with sparse fine carbonation. Not much in the way of head - just a half-finger of off-white. Patchy lacing.

Aroma: plenty of sharp apricot, perhaps a touch of spice in the background. Fairly one-dimensional.

Taste: a very sharp apricot flavour, again without much more to it. Not unpleasant, but I kind of figured that a beer with more than 9% ABV would have more oomph.

Aftertaste: some bitterness comes through on the finish with still the sharp apricots. Not really sweet - just sharp. Not particularly memorable.

Mouth feel: moderate in feel with a sharp carbonation. I'm not sure quite what is wrong, but the flavours are far too sharp rather than sweet. A bit meh.

Overall: a fairly one-dimensional and not particularly brilliant apricot IPA. It is impressive that such a high ABV beer has such light flavours, but unfortunately the apricot is too sharp - almost metallic - and has very little to back it up. Reasonable at best, and for AU$90+ a case (2014)? I think not. Mon Doog's had more hits than misses so far though, so I'll forgive them this one.

 

 

Weird Weird Weird.

A - light golden clear body, little head, film.

S - erm, apricots, and little else. Modest.

T - Apricots, sweet, cinnamon, spice, creamy.

M - light. silky, no hint of ABV.

O - OK, did I mention hops in all of the above? Not me... this is strange, for a nearly 10% beer, there is no bitterness, no palate whack, moderate flavour level, and it is akin to a sweet soft drink. I mean. it's good, but....

Ok this is an IPA brewed with dried apricots and cinamon and pours a golden hue with a nice creamy two finger dimple laden head and lacing everywhere,the smell is light apricot,cinamon along with strong herbal hops reminiscent of a pilsner and a touch of pale malts and the smell is abit all over the place but still inviting,the feel is full bodied,creamy and well carbonated with tastes of cinamon firstly followed by grassy herbal hops,berries and to be honest for a double IPA there isn't a lot of bitterness on the finish but overall it ain't a bad drop and easy enough to drink.

 

Pours amber with a small, lasting head.
Nose shows over-ripe apricot, some caramel and resinous hops. The apricot character is pretty tempting!
Flavours still focus on apricot, but seem somewhat musty, like dried apricots. Lots of caramel, but also a smoked malt character, pretty interesting!
Body seems a bit too syrupy and thick.