Baby Bender's Sticky Rib Red Ale
Bacchus Brewing Co.

Tried on-tap at the Welcome Hotel in Rozelle as part of their Beer Mimics Food event during Sydney Craft Beer Week. This was probably the most triumphantly successful beer in that theme.

Pours a deep red-brown colour, solidly but note ludicrously hazed. Body is firm and fairly rich, with very fine carbonation. Head forms a pale beige crest, a little filmy but leaving some lace. Looks decent.

Nose is immediately successful in mimicking what it's trying to do. Plum sauce, sticky and sweet, smoky and porky. Clinging, heavy richness makes the sauce seem to drip with gooey lambency. Some spice is noticeable as well. Gorgeous stuff, and absolutely spot-on what it was attempting to do.

Similarly on the palate: indeed, it's just following on from the nose. Plum and prune characters on the front pepped up by spice on the mid-palate. Here we get some rum, bourbon and aniseed fragrance. By the end, the porky, rich sweet smoky character run riot: peppery, flame roasted meat, plenty of smoky drive. The spice builds up after a while, leaving it pretty hot on the back. Feel is great—matches the flavours nicely until that burn starts to accumulate.

Mostly, this is just damn great. It's extremely successful at what it was trying to do, and Ross from Bacchus also managed to make a supremely drinkable brew from it as well. This was a riproaring success as far as I was concerned.