The Shunned House
Martin City Brewing Company

 

 

Going down it is smooth but the initial smell is a bit scary.vnot a session beer by any means. Cold winter beer for sure.

a brett fermented pale ale, its not bad, but the brett tastes young and not fully developed, and maybe like it was done a little too hot, a bit cheesy and weird, yes funky, but not as rustic and interesting as i like it to be. there is a little more malt to this than many, and a slightly higher abv than is common. as such, i was hoping for a more layered and complex beverage, and a drier one too. it just seems like a light to medium crystal malt in with the pale and maybe a little wheat, and there arent nearly as much hops in here as i would expect in a pale ale base type; the brett seems like only one of several yeasts at work here. either that or they just pitched way too much. some fruity notes from it, red apple and raisin, but its a lot of that sweaty flavor that i really am not crazy about. i had this immediately after a jolly pumpkin beer in a similar style, and it was readily obvious that this is at least a league lower in overall quality than the jolly beer. that said, i have not seen much of this kind of beer from martin city, so its cool they are playing around with it. maybe its just a strain of brett that puts off some weird flavors, but this could use some reworking...

edit: this has either gotten better in successive batches or aged well over time if it was only brewed once. its funkier, drier, better carbonated, cleaner, and just superior in every way, quite complex, and far better than i remember it being. raising a few scores to reflect the improvements!