GPA 8.0 High Gravity Cream Ale
Boston Baked Beans Co.

Pours with white, two-fingered head, fades quickly and leaves barely any lace. Medium carbonation. Cloudy, light golden/amber color. Nose is faintly hoppy, starts and finishes with a lot of strong flavor of hops and malts. This was brewed by Z Street Brewing Co.for Boston Baked Beans Co.

Pours a super cloudy medium golden, small ring of white foam that leaves a decent lacing. Aroma is very sweet, vanilla, lots of butterscotch. Flavor is like drinking a scoop of vanilla ice cream with a lot of butterscotch topping. Medium body, mucho carbonation, alcohol is hidden well behind all the cloying sweetness.

Very thick pour little if any head to speak of. Deep copper color and syrupy complexion. Sweet malt and metallic aromas. Some pineapple? Can that be? Taste = Malt. Some alcohol and grain flavors show themselves and the beer is as thick tasting as it looks. This tastes a lot like a Malt Liquor. Great artwork, and worth a try, but not worth drinking on a regular basis.

Sampled from a 12 oz bottle with a really cool Bostonian package. Appearance is straw colored with low carbonation. The smell is nice with strong malty notes and minimal to zero hop pressence. The taste is sweet up front, but the high alcohol slightly balances that out. It's 8% ABV is naturally warming going down, but the lack of a powerful mouthfeel leaves a lot to be desired.

I had this beer after the Pranqster so my taste buds may have been messed up a bit. Poured dark copper in color with a minimal head that was gone before I could blink. The smell was sweet and malty all the way.

The taste was malt, malt and more malt. No trace of hops that I could find. Lacking a bit in carbonation which I think would have helped this brew out. Very heavy and thick mouthfeel.

Interesting to say the least but I am glad that I got to sample it. Very cool packaging and bottle label.

An odd, albeit bold, offering from the Boston Baked Beans Co. (who?) ... Contract brewed by Z Street Brewing Co. of Fitchburg, MA.

Had this first at the AOBF in May 2003, but recently found this in 4-packs at my local ghetto liquor store for only $6.25. Black and white packaging and labels with a drawn image of Boston and the Charles River.

Deep golden in colour with a slight hazy peach hue and topped with a creamy white foam head; fades quickly. Aroma is dominated by a spicy alcohol character and notes of raw pale malts.

Smooth and creamy body, firm foundation. Well-attenuated and dry. Quite malty with a sweet tropical fruitiness (pineapple stands out) that melds seamlessly with an assertive and spicy alcohol flavour. Alcohol sticks to the palate with a prickly feel and racy fumes. Malt gets a bit doughy in character as the beer warms, and the alcohol becomes more pronounced. Notes of steel. A tad piney and herbal, which might be the only sign of hops pulling through the alcohol. Dry finish with residual bread, herbal and alcohol fumes.

Interesting. Although it's not a beer that I go back to on a regular basis, it's nice to see what is essentially a craft brewed malt liquor on the shelves (with some Cream Ale qualities). Given this, if I wanted to get my juice on, I'd be more apt to grab a 4-pack of this vs. a macro malt liquor ... fo' schizzle.

A new offering from Joe Z and the gang from Z St....sampled at the AOBF.
This newbie has a rich, clear golden color, topped by a creamy, white, fine head, and leaving decent lacing. Nose consisted of a bready, maltiness which was fairly strong. Body was in the medium range, and it was slightly prickly on the tongue due to the carbonation, though it wasn't a negative. Flavor was malty and semi-sweet up-front, with a pleasant toasty aspect also. A smidge of hops showed up at the finish to keep things honest. The 8% abv seemed to be well hidden. Nice brew!

overall: 4
appearance: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | mouthfeel: 4 | drinkability: 4

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