Maple Falls
North by Northwest Restaurant & Brewery - South

this one is a little sweet and a little boozy, a tasty enough beer, but a small dose still feels like a lot with it. the thing about maple in beer, is that it can be real sweet but its also real easily fermented out, so getting the balance of sugar and flavor right can be a real task. i think in this instance, there is too much malt sweetness left for the maple to really stand out on its own, its there, but its just more sugar for me, and the crystal malt and caramelized wort aspects of this almost do the maple flavoring instead of the maple itself, like, its almost superfluous in this context. the grain base basically achieves it already, which is cool i guess, but i would like the maple to be more distinct here, not so wrapped up in the other grain sugars as it is. this gets a little heavy, and when warm, boozy too. its well made though, its just a lot of sweetness to have in a beer, even without it being overly maple driven, at least to me. id like to taste some more stuff from these guys when i get myself to austin, seems like they do some rather interesting beers...