The Final Cowntdown
Bolero Snort Brewery

 

 

DATE: January 1, 2019... OCCASION: on the eve of a gluten-free month, I say goodbye to (most) beer with a beer whose name fits both last night's party and my personal attempt to fight this allergy... GLASSWARE: Duvel snifter... pineapple-colored, thickly opaque, with an appreciable finger's worth of pillowed, uneven band of bubbles... mango, pineapple, lemon zest and pepper suggest robust hoppiness... a sourness ushered by the Cashmere agitates, while the other pair of hops takes the citrus to a mouth-watering invitation... small funk from the yeast... its mouthfeel is juicy indeed, biting at the teeth and cloying at the throat... its medium-bodied presence makes it drinkable yet worth sipping slowly, a crunching like eggshells when considering its hoppy heft... the lemon, pineapple, pepper, vanilla cream, barnyard funk, dank resin, and lightly toasted malts makes for quite a countdown indeed... caught off guard yesterday by its intense resin, this works better when other beers do not precede its extreme bitterness... acidic and bitter, with melon, orange and mint.... again, this sounded (in label) like a fitting beer for last night, but it was a bit big for a long evening... tonight, as its own show, this stands up/out nicely, offering a tropical complexion and a bitter, puckering finish that will make me long for a real IPA...