Cliff Hanger
The Grizzly Paw Brewing Company

 

 

650ml bottle, an apparent collaboration with Cowtown's Dandy Brewing, which resulted in a BPA, if I'm parsing the label marketing blurb correctly.

This beer pours a, a, well, a certainly not 'pale', very dark brown colour, with three fingers of puffy, rocky, and chunky beige head, which leaves some defrosting windshield pattern lace around the glass as things quickly progress.

It smells of lightly roasted and grainy caramel malt, hints of spicy black licorice, some estery yeastiness, muddled black orchard fruity notes, and some plain leafy, weedy, and gently perfumed floral hoppiness. The taste is bready and doughy caramel malt, a touch of free-range char, subtle breakfast cereal grains, some still hard to pinpoint dark stone fruitiness, earthy anise spice, and more timid earthy, leafy, and estery floral hop bitters.

The carbonation is fairly laid-back in its weak-sauce frothiness, the body a decent medium weight, and generally smooth, with a wee airy creaminess arising as soon as things move out of bar fridge temperature range. It finishes off-dry, the mildly roasted malt lingering alongside some fading licorice/vanilla thing, and the remains of the noble hop day.

Overall, my experience would have had a better initial impression here if they'd changed one simple word on the label: 'pale' to 'dark', as in Belgian Dark Ale instead of the laughable Belgian Pale Ale. Ok, that aside, this is a pleasant enough version of the now sussed-out style, with a genial je ne sais quoi drinkability. I don't know what that means either, other than I shall be drinking the rest of this, anon.