Gone To Morocco With Dates
Rooster Brewing

With the addition of dates to the notoriously smooth and robust flavor of Gone To Morocco, the new taste shifts a balance to the early sweetness of those stone fruits for a more turkish-style coffee taste and a hint of licorice and tar.

Like its predecessor, the Date-ed version of Gone to Morocco is also devilishly dark in brown, appearing black in the middle. The nose opens with an assertive toasty-roasty medley with the earthen sweetness that points to the fruit additions. The supple nature of burnt sugar, prune, and toast frame the initial taste while the scent of citrus bitters and smoky pine unfold in flavor.

Holding onto its earth and sweetness, the fruit and malt combine to balance the middle palate and to refute the dryness that's common in IPA. This allows the bitterness of hops to show its citrus pine and resinous taste but with that tar-like, tobacco-like peppery sweetness. Where hops only add support in balance so far, the bitterness is smooth, rounded and coffee-like with tethers of pine and citrus.

With the pine and char making a late charge on the back of the throat, the citrus and peppery influence from spice gives the overall finish a little rye-like grit even though the medium-light bodied beer trends dry and spicy late, along with that long undertone of dates for a hint of sarsaparilla in aftertaste.