Mushhushshu - Lemon Chocolate
Rhinegeist Brewery

one of their weirdest beers ive had all year, like so insanely intensely flavored its almost hard to believe, and even in a usually robust style like a dark strong, especially one aged in bourbon barrels, its the added flavors that totally dominate, make this almost not even beery, and the richness of everything going on with the perfume-like intensity and prominent acidity of the lemon is a weird choice, i dont hate it, but i sure dont love it either, and even after spending a little time with it, its kind of lost on me a little bit. thick, dark brown, murky and viscous, and with limited carbonation activity too. its made with lemongrass and lemon both, but i get way more of the latter, puckery and sharp even though the decadence of the bourbon barrel treatment and all the malt. its also done with vanilla and chocolate, and it straight up also smells and tastes like brownie batter, so much chocolate, and it would be hard to call it fully compatible with the lemon, especially at this intensity on both. vanilla is a neat wrinkle, the bourbon is good, but im not even sure the base beer is great because its hard to taste. some raisin and leather, wood for sure, toffee, definitely tart and bitter too though, makes no sense, over flavored to oblivion, heavy, molasses, weird. i get tobacco, dark chocolate, black fig, and zested lemon including its pith, zested too deep into the white, thats how this hits in the flavor. im not sure its rightly listed as a belgian, the ferment is not really a factor, and if thats supposed to be part of this, its crowded out by the lemon and chocolate. sweet and sour at the same time, late red wine vinegar sharpness but still with obvious whiskey character, boozy, near flat, sort of medicinal, very strange. looks like they do a few variants of this and id be curious to see if the others are as odd an intense, tasted this one forever. one of a kind beer, but not necessarily in a good way, im still confused...

Lemon!
Apparently some way-too-high intern misread the recipe and instead of pouring in a measured amount of lemon juicy, they just dumped it all- transforming this normally bold and robust ale into a nearly playful sour ale.

Without any glimpse of its tart taste to come, Lemon Chocolate Mushhushshu pours its familiar dark brown, viscous, coffee-like self. As its sandy tan head forms on the rim, the first uh-oh scent of lemon shocks the senses with intense citrus and a background aroma of chocolate, coffee and cream. Expectedly sweet, the early impressions start pastry-rich with chocolate, cake batter and toffee.

But any balance is left in the dark as the brightness of lemon completely dominate the sweeter or more robust chocolate, coffee, toast, or molasses malt flavors. Only a backdrop of dark chocolate act to support the lemon but the session remains lemon-heave and with a citric acid finish.

 

What the what!?
Black as ink. Nose is very chocolate, lots and lots of chocolate!
Taste is sweet and LEMON!
Everything melds with the chocolate, lemon coconut and bourbon aging.