Twisted Antler
Big Rock Brewery

Pours dark as you would expect. Smells a bit of coffee and liquorice and what you smell is what you taste. It kinda left a film in your mouth that stuck around.

Sweet-ish, deep, a bit licorice-y. Pretty good

 

 

Appearance - Pours a dark chestnut brown with half a finger of bubbly beige head.

Smell - Roasted malts, licorice/anise seed, prune and raisin, hint of cocoa.

Taste - Licorice and anise seed, roasted malts and cocoa as the predominant flavours. Bit of campfire smokiness in the finish.

Mouthfeel - Medium bodied with light-to-moderate carbonation. Smooth body.

Overall - A unique flavour profile by combining licorice, roasted malts, cocoa and smoke into one brew.

341ml bottle poured into tulip 11/11/13

A brown liquid with a ruby glow when held to the light, just a short lived finger of tan foam leaves no lace

S big nose of anise and licorice root, cola and root beer, very faint coco, I don't get any of the coffee at all, very one sided towards anise and licorice but if that's your thing you might like this

T some cold coffee but its very faint and struggling to shine through the massive licorice presence, again its all licorice, overpowering for sure, I love licorice but its just not in check

M thin and foamy, a little slick and leaves your mouth feeling slimy, the finish has coffee and the licorice is mellow unlike everywhere else

O I like licorice root but this is a little over the top, one dimensional and although far from bad its far from great

this one has one thing going for it...anise and licorice, OK that's two things but either way it has little going on otherwise

341ml bottle. Somehow the term 'twisted antler' seems a bit cruel, especially in light of the stereotypical lumberjack posing right next to the rightful owner of said headgear.

This beer pours a clear, very dark red-tinted brownish amber hue, with two fingers of bubbly, and weakly foamy tan head, which leaves some streaky serpentine lace around the glass as it evenly subsides.

It smells of musty, grainy, pale and caramel malt, weak day-old coffee, fairly hard to ignore anise, artisan root beer, subtle bittersweet chocolate, a touch of brewers' yeast, and leafy, earthy, and slightly perfumed hops. The taste is lightly smoked caramel malt, a soft bittersweet chocolate and generic coffee shop cuppa java bitterness, those black licorice 'candies', tame sour milk, herbal, leafy hops, and a mild booze warming.

The bubbles are quite understated, though perceptible at times in a sort of reborn fizzy manner, the body a decent medium weight, and blandly smooth by the same innocuous measure. It finishes off-dry, the lingering smoked caramel malt and earthy coffee notes carrying the day, with some dry cocoa, astringent black licorice, lactose, and herbal hops providing distant backup.

A decent enough ode to the porter style, landing somewhere between the Yankee and London version, the cocoa, coffee, anise, and generally screwed up hops not really knowing what for. Still, this is Big Rock, so all might be forgiven, for they know not what they do. Ok, not entirely fair, but that is my general, long-informed feeling, tempered by my unfailing support in faithfully drinking their beers lo these many years.