Kveik - Jalapeño Popper
Shades Brewing

absurd, why even do something like this?! a crazy beer, sour ale brewed with jalapeno pepper, bacon, and cream cheese, really?! it looks a little clearer than a lot of the other ones, even with a little shake of the can before opening, which we have learned is the best way to drink these. an orange color, very fizzy like a soda but not holding much head at all, im sure the bacon grease stops that in its tracks. i am a little surprised by the nose and taste, which are pretty comparable, to me the cream cheese part is first in front of the pepper or the bacon, its tangy and lactic like yogurt, even a little sour creamy with the acid in here, but its also natural and milky and pleasant, even though i dont even like cream cheese on its own, it works in this it seems, light citrus with it, kind of fancy. its the bacon piece that brings it back down to redneck level, light smoke, not real meaty to me, and without the fatty richness i was hoping for, its an accent at best, its not the defining element in here that i thought it would be. the jalapeno is not super spicy but a little warm going down, offset a bit by the malt, which is earthy and toasted and more involved in the flavor in this one than it is in many of the others in this wild series. its fresh and vegetal and has a little limey pop with it, definitely identifiable as jalapeno specifically, which i love, and well enough restrained to not take over. overall this is super weird, weird as a beer, even weirder as a sour, cheese and meat in the same beer, crazy. fun to taste, but i am glad we were sharing the can around several ways, not sure i could do a whole one. didnt expect the cream cheese to lead, but for me it did. these are getting stranger by the release it seems, but i keep coming back to them, one of the most fun series of beers to share and discuss in the game right now, even if they arent all amazing. this is a novelty, it doesnt exactly taste like a jalapeno popper either, but its exciting!