Monsters' Park - Jamaican Rum Barrel-Aged - Turkish Coffee Edition
Modern Times Beer

 

 

22oz bottle with 5 months of aging, stored properly, poured into a 9oz snifter.

Pours black with a small off white head that mostly diminishes.

Nose is mostly rum with a touch of coffee.

Taste adds vanilla to what is in the nose. The sweetness of the rum carries through to the finish.

Some warmth comes through the medium body.

Rum dominates this beer without overwhelming it. In fact, the rum works really well with the background notes of coffee and vanilla. An excellent MP variant.

 

 

 

 

 

This was released at the same time as an Almond, Vanilla, Cocoa variant that just sounds sexier based on the description, but I knew this one would be a sleeper. I won't bury the lead here, I hate coffee. It's actually growing on me because of my stout drinking, but the taste of a straight coffee bean brewed in water, either hot or cold, is still somewhat repulsive to me. That said, one of the few times in my life that I didn't gag on the burnt, bitter flavor of a roasted coffee bean is when I took a sip of proper Turkish coffee.

This beer matches that flavor. There's most certainly a roast coffee flavor both in the nose and as soon as this hits your tongue, but there are heavy doses of cardamom, a hint of vanilla (admittedly, I have a burnt mouth from some delicious, yet flamingly hot pizza, so my taste buds are slightly off), and a sweet rum characteristic that wash out the initial coffee bite with excellent results. The lasting flavor on your tongue is cardamom and a hint of rum, which is to say, happiness.

The smell is amazing; all spiced coffee and rum, and the look and mouthfeel are both great.