Verte
Blacklist Brewing Co.

Had this on tap at Lake Ave Restaurant in Duluth, MN. This farmhouse Belgian style ale is excellent. I liken it to my favorite brewery in the US... Draai Laag in Pittsburgh, PA. I'll hopefully be back for this spectacular ale. The 9.5% is not too much for real beer drinkers and is light for a warm/hot day. Watch out... it creeps up like all ~10% ABV ales. Cheers!

I had this on tap at the taproom, and drank it alongside a glass of Or de Belgique, the excellent base BSPA from which this is made. The bartender told me this is basically a hopped version of the base beer. It's not wildly different from the base beer, as the hops are not dominant. But Verte does have a slightly spicy taste, and a mildly bitter finish. You're not getting a hoppy American brew by any means, but this is a nice change on the standard BSPA. I liked it quite a bit.

750ML bottle with a hot, green-haired elf on the label. Only picked up because it was half off - I’ve enjoyed the Blacklist I’ve had, but the bottles are too expensive for what they are. Split with my wife.

Pour is orange & lively. Smell is orange & citrus. I like it.

Verte is an impressive balancing act. Tastes a little like that hefe that keeps his towels & weights on four different benches - big bananas, ripe peaches, before the citrus comes in & does some genocide stuff on everything else. Light bitterness, rye-like spiciness, cardamom, slight grape must, & sweet honey round out the experience. Dry, & going down like Lake Otter in a dry year.

This is really nice. Smudging up style boundaries & making something tasty isn’t easy, but this succeeds. Blacklist - put some stuff in four packs or don’t premium price everything & you might really develop a following, including this guy. Very good beer.

L: A hazy amber gold pour produces a rocky 3” moussey off-white foam cap that reduces to 1/3 its original size in 4 minutes.
S: Stone fruit, especially peach, spice and bread crust.
T: the beer attacks with big fruit and then hops emerge and linger long into the finish. Has a peach palate with an assertive dose of hops over bread crust background. The hops are big but there is a good balance with the stone fruit, malty sweetness and light bread flavors.
F: Medium body to medium light, very creamy and not much alcohol warming for 9.5% abv.
O: Very nicely done.

 

i have to start by saying this is probably the most beautifully packaged beer i have ever seen, or close to it. so often its either simple and rustic, or gimmicky and graphic, but this is both classy and artistic, and really enticing, attractive, and borderline arousing. i love it! the beer in the bottle is like a hopped up belgian tripel, and it seems like the belgian styles is really what these guys focus on. lots of body, lots of residual sugar, and a really cool yeast profile thats fruity and sweet and big. hazy pale yellow beer but lots of viscosity. a mild aroma of alcohol coming though grassy hops with the slightest hint of lemon cleaner. the grain does most of the flavoring, and its pretty complex. maybe some oats for body and sweetness, maybe some rye in there too, unless i am mistaking the spice character from the yeast. its fresh and bold, and its not like other beers, but it yet somehow rather authentic. i like its hazy cloudy rawness, and its size. the hops are a lot less influential here than i thought they might be, but they add another layer on the back end. overall its cool beer, but a little too sweet for my palate, and a little lighter on the hops than i had hoped for, but for fans of big interesting belgians, this is not to be missed. i really want to try the other stuff these guys make, it all looks so interesting...

 

 

Finally picked up a bottle of this from Zipp's. I've been eyeing this for a while.

Cork was impossible to get out--had to breakout the corkscrew.

Pours a nice light yellow color, good head that lingers.

Smell--hmm...oxidized hops? Uh oh. Some citrus. Some alcohol. Some citrus and general fruityness.

Taste--hot. Rubbing alcohol. Oxidized hops. Hard to get past these and taste any hops. Some Belgian yeast character detected.

Mouthfeel--thick. near cloying, but not quite.

Overall--very disappointed. I'm hoping that this is not characteristic of the brewery--I might bet my bottle was a little old, but unfortunately that only gets rid of the oxidized hops. The rest of the bottle is now heading to the Mississippi