Seven Card Stud
Payette Brewing

Draft at the brewery. Hazy, medium amber , lasting skin of head. Nice rich malty aroma. Taste still favors the malts, but adds some nice hoppy bite. Potent, but very sublime. Sneaks up on you.

650ml bottle poured into tulip.

Pours a murky orange with three fingers of rocky beige head that leaves gothic architecture lace as it recedes.

Smells of spiced orange preserve, caramel cake, toffee pudding, muddled citrus zest, pineapple and mango salad, garden flowers and piney hops.

Tastes of more toffee pudding and stewed orange slices, rich caramel malt, grapefruit and orange zestiness, muddled tropical fruit, pine resin and floral hops.

Feels rich and thick. Full bodied with frothy carbonation. Finishes dry.

Verdict: Highly recommended. Smells a bit closer to a barleywine than an IPA, but the taste does bring the hops.

22oz bottle - the name 'Payette' does seem to connote a Wild West, gamblin' sort of town feeling, doesn't it?

This beer pours a murky, medium apricot amber colour, with four fingers of puffy, loosely foamy, and bubbly tan head, which leaves some decent thickly streaked lace around the glass as it lazily sinks out of sight.

It smells of rather boozy orange, white grapefruit, and lemon citrus peel, grainy and doughy caramel malt, some weird earthy spiciness, further indistinct tropical fruity notes, and more leafy, piney, and soused-up floral green hop bitters. The taste is bready and doughy caramel malt, a lesser biscuity toffee thing, heady, if hard to identify exotic and domestic fruity esters, some earthy minerality, a hint of wayward son yeast, and more tame leafy, weedy, and piney verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is fairly laid-back in its cushy frothiness, the body a solid-ass middleweight, and generally smooth, with maybe a touch of Yuk-a-Flux running some clumsy interference patterns here. It finishes off-dry, the mixed fruit, equally robust malt, and sort of besotted hops making a swell lingering day of it.

Overall - well, this one starts off on the wrong foot, rights it soon enough, but not entirely so, as the cohesiveness factor here is quite low. Not to mention the barely tethered 20-proof wowee sauce component, and what we're left with is a drinkable offering, sure, but in that reserved, don't exactly overdo it sense, i.e. hold your cards close, mes amis.

Pours a deep, hazy amber with orange-red highlights and off-white head. Aroma is oranges, black tea, and nutmeg. Flavor is sweet; more baking spice flavors with orange pekoe tea, light coffee, and baked bread. Medium-full body with medium-high carbonation. Finish is sweet but with a moderate bitterness that dries it out at the last second. Very interesting and complex IPA.