Cultivator
Tributary Brewing Co.

 

500ml bottle served in a tulip. Pours a lovely mahogany hue with a tight, three-finger, tan-colored head and a slight haze to body. Nose expresses a kiss of smoke, spice and vinous notes. Taste follows nose with a slight herbal/medicinal quality at the finish. Mouthfeel is light-medium in body with an easy, even carbonation. Overall, a nice example of an underrepresented style.

From a 0.5l bottle, procured from the source about 2 months ago ($10)... Enjoying in The 'Zebo...

Poured into a Willi Becher glass.... it's a lovely, clear, deep chestnut color. Has light carbo, and the head is a creamy 1/2" layer of soft light beige foam. Lacing is fairly sparse, though. The rye jumps right out at me in the nose, along with some brown bread and fruitcake. Body and feel? Oooh!! Silky smooth and medium-plus, almost being chewy.

Taste? Has rich caramel and toffee to start. Then something akin to a fig jam spread atop some toasted brown bread. It also reminds me of a rum-laced fruitcake, with hints of orange and cinnamon. Mixed in with all this is a layer of spicy rye as the semi-sweetness lingers lovingly on the palate. Another top-shelf Tod Mott offering!! Prosit!!

4.25/5 rDev -6.8%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

2298

Tried this on tap and from a fresh bottle. Pours a beautiful mahogany with red highlights and 1/2" of white foam. A great looking glass.
Nose is quite light. Enticing rye bread, coriander seed and caraway notes.
Palate is immediatly very full and broad. There is a caramel sweetness that is balanced by the rich spice of the rye. Bread dough and coriander carry through from the nose with some galangal, cinnamon, burnt toffee, a hint spicy heat but no alchohol burn.
This is a truly awesome beer. Gave half my first order away with an evangelical "You have to try this!" Had to go back for another batch and I will be jealously hoarding those. Truly World Beer Awards quality. Thank you Mott.

From a 500ml bottle, undated, purchased at the brewery 05/19/21. Served in a tulip.

Pours a glowing maple syrup color, or rich semi-burnt caramel, with an honest finger of super-soft, lathery foam. Retention is only just decent but leaves a creamy, sudsy collar and a solid blanket of thin lacing... and whatever else may come, this is one fucking beautiful beer.

The aroma is sweet and bready. Gingerbread, orange peel, figs. It smells like a bakery.

Taste is in accord with the nose. It's sweet and sugary, and more reminiscent of gingerbread than pumpernickel. Golden syrup, fig preserves, and a pronounced bakery spice character, anise, ginger, warm cinnamon and demerara sugar. Finishes with a smidge of ashy bitterness which improbably somehow balances out all that residual sugar. There is zero discernible alcohol on the palate.

Feel is smooth, viscous and slick, bready/doughy with ample fine, prickly, but otherwise unobtrusive carbonation. The beer is hefty and sweet but never feels syrupy.

Sweet merciful Dionysus, this, my friends, is some substantial liquid nourishment! I live an hour and a half from the seacoast but I’m seriously considering going all the way back to the brewery and buying every single bottle for myself. I’m going to throw away my oatmeal and have this for breakfast every morning. And this will be the only BA review because there’ll be no bottles left for you all. Bwahahaha.

It wasn’t obvious whether I should have entered this into the database as a doppelbock or a rye beer. I chose roggenbier pretty much on a coin toss but if future generations want to change it to doppelbock I have no objection. It’s pretty obviously a doppelbock, and a damn fine one at that. But, it’s a roggenbier, too.