Apple Brandy Paradise
Prairie Artisan Ales

I know this is infected.

From a 12 oz. bottle into a PAA Apple brandy bomb glass, this beer pours out with a slick blackness. Finger width of dark mocha crown, that noisily and quickly dissipates.

The nose brings some fudgey chocolate mixing with a faint tart cherry. So close to being undetectably infected. Some faint vanilla sneaks in at the end as well. Some musty like funk.

The taste brings dark chocolate covered coconut, almost mounds like, with that taunting infecting cherry in the background of it.

Sticky, full mouthfeel, slightly tart.

Overall, this is another infected prairie beer that I can see the potential it had. I would’ve loved to see what this could’ve been. Dark chocolate covered coconut like a mounds.

For another one of those moments when those all-too-common yearnings are for imperials stout, the other a Mounds coconut and chocolate candy, and one more for apple and whisky... well, now there's an ale for that too- a dark one, a strong one, a robust one, a spicy one.

As dark and devious as any imperial stout, the ominously black austere of Apple Brandy Paradise carries a near onyx-like sheen again with a dainty espresso-like creme. Is rich scent is decadent with roasty, chocolaty, nutty underpinnings with the soothing scent of coconut and vanilla swirling gently above. An added scent of apple and whisky offers both balance and interest to the nose. Its taste is just as creamy, roasty and toasty with burnt molasses and batter-like sweetness as the original Paradise.

As the stout saturates the tongue to absolute fullness, the robust sweetness of bittersweet chocolate, dark roast coffee, roasting walnut, burnt toast and black-strap molasses is once again unforgiving in its sultry resolve. As softer caramel, vanilla, condensed milk and coconut cream cautiously enter the taste, the ale takes somber turn to suggest something decadently of chocolate candies. And as expected, the growing apple brandy spices up the late palate while rounding the tropical taste with an apple orchard medley.

Full, lavish and without changing that magical marshmallow textures on the palate, the beer's char links into the stern booziness for a spicy, toasty and drying taste and mouthfeel. Reading like kaluha and brandy at times, the notions of spiked coffees come to mind. A long roasty-sweet aftertaste continues to be rounded by the tropical coconut and soothing vanilla but counter to the simmering warmth of apple brandy in a long and patient aftertaste.

 

 

 

Pours nice, but infected

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is one of the infected ones. Very dark appearance with an obvious but sour aroma. Taste is also a sour to the point that it blocks much of the flavor from the other ingredients. I threw out the second bottle.

Infected unfortunately, but still had some hints of sweetness from the coconut and vanilla. Bummer as this could have been an incredible beer. Hope they try this again in the future.