Stump Coastal Forest Botanic Ale
Phillips Brewing & Malting Co.

 

I purchased the 650 ml bottle. The first thing I thought of when I took a sip was lemon pepper. There's a lot of floral, fruit, and spice going on here but the lemon really stands out to me. It claims to have lemon, grand fir, coriander, juniper berry, and orange essential oil. It really does make you think of a forest, and the artwork on the bottle is great. While not something I'm going to rush back to the store to buy more of, it's a really unique brew that I can't quite compare to anything I've had before. If you're into new experiences or enjoy citrus and floral, this one is worth trying.

 

Had one 650 mL bottle. It has a golden, clear but slightly hazy body with some foamy slightly off-white head. There is a strong aroma, which I expected from something with 'botanical' in the name. I pick up a variety of fresh fruits on the aroma, like apple, lemon, grape, as well as a familiar floral/herbal aroma I can't place. I find the taste less strong than the aroma and more dominated by the floral/herbal notes and a woody syrup quality. It has a light body for an ale. It feels wet and leaves with a little spice (the coriander). Overall, great. Has the floral, herbal, wood flavours I like and it is really well balanced with the beer.

 

 

650ml bottle, apparently a brew based on their Stump Gin, and all its botanicals, I would imagine.

This beer pours a clear, medium golden yellow colour, with three pudgy fingers of puffy, finely foamy, and fizzy off-white head, which leaves some chunky island mass lace around the glass as it rashly fades away.

It smells of sharply estery pine needles, spruce tips, and other indistinct herbals, gritty and grainy pale malt, muddled dry orange, lemon, and white grapefruit zest, juniper berries, a subtle earthy spiciness, and more floral and grassy green, ah, Imma gonna say hoppiness? The taste is bready and slightly doughy pale malt, verdant forest floor bitters (sprucey, piney, and musty, all), mixed grapefruit, juniper berry, and orange fruity notes, a waning sense of spice that never was, and more leafy, floral, and slightly perfumed hops.

The bubbles are actually pretty tame in their barely functioning frothiness, the body a decent enough middleweight, and more or less smooth, as the complex greenery here is more of the golf course variety, it would seem. It finishes off-dry, the malt still trying to balance out that very testy, and almost overwhelming, er, 'coastal forest' character.

Well, I suppose that Phillips really nails it with this rather fragrant craft gin-like experience (sans the alcohol, at any level, really). Lots of big forest flora stuff going on in this offering, combined with a distraction-worthy fruity essence. Yup, a successful adult beverage crossover brew, if I ever saw or tasted one.