Double Day Of The Dead
Garage Project

 

 

Pours a dark-brown cola colour. Head is beige and foamy but ultimately unimpressive. Looks like a flat lager with nice colour.

Nose is better: malty-sweet, roasty and slightly dry with coffee, chocolate, nice hint of green coffee beans; nice and roasty and well-handled aroma.

Malty character upfront, more coffee and chocolate. Nice roasty and dry spice notes around the mid. Nice build-up from the malt and nicely clean finish. Really good dark lager.

Noticeably sharp alcohol on the mouthfeel which is quite on the hot side. Decent body, but does get quite warm going down.

I didn't know there was chilli on this; good job with it really since it wasn't overtly noticeable. Bit of heat but no big chilli flavour; allowed the darker elements to speak for themselves. Really impressed with this.

A dark brown colour with lots of black hints. No real head on this though. The aroma is full of smoky malt and roasted malt character. To me it is a little thin and could be more interesting. The flavour comes good with a balanced hit of chilli, spice and chocolate. Some coffee adds interest and despite being fairly light on it is enjoyable. The medium light body with moderate carbonation is fine. Overall, a nice beer with a well spiced palate and interesting concept. Tasty.

On-tap at the GABS festival in Melbourne. Classified at the festival as a "Strong Black Lager", brewed with cocoa nibs and chipotle chilli, "inspired by the Aztec beverage xocolatl". "Xocolatl" isn't an option, so I've classified it as a Chilli Beer.

Pours a mid cola-brown colour, with reasonable clarity. Body is very light, especially for 8% abv. Almost no discernible head: maybe just a ring of off-white that leaves no lace. Not all that appealing, to be honest.

Aroma is based around the dark characters: roasty grains and coffee come through strongly, along with something a little plasticky or rubbery. It's not bad, but it doesn't really give a hint at the ingredients that went into its creation.

Roast comes through again on the front palate, but the beer gains more complexity after this. Coffee lends a fruitiness to the mid-palate, and there's some hint of the chilli giving a fragrant peppery bite later on. Finish is bitter, devolving into those sharp dark black characters again, with quite an ashy aftertaste.

Feel is indeed far too light: far lighter than the characters need, and far lighter than I expected.

Overall, this is a decent brew: the fruity elements of the coffee and chilli are used judiciously and wisely so as not to overpower. But it's just missing out in some other areas which means the complexities of the flavours don't really get to show themselves.