Passionate Freak
Sand City Brewing Co. - North

 

A: Rose with accents of bruised peach. Packed white head with characteristic lacing.

S: Edges a little on the fruit punch, cherry wood, white ale yeast, bitter orange perfume, honeyed maltiness.

M: Amazing effervescence and lightness considering the ABV. No obvious alcohol other than some residual sweetness perhaps accentuated by the fruit additions. Could have fooled me as a summer cooler.

T: Honey-toasted white, yeast throughout especially on the finish. Chokecherry syrup, fresh bing cherries, pink strawberries. Madagascar vanilla melds with tropical passionfruit, but bitter/tartness is kept low. Some sort of savory cranberry relish: cloves, black peppercorn over sugar. Some green hay, but it doesn't extend into the barn. Orange hard candy. Not a style I'm overly familiar with, but delightful overall.

 

 

3/23/19 canning; from the label: "Belgian triple brewed with passion fruit and cherries"

Pours a deep ruddy amber, hazy but in a resinous way... Bam! with fruits right up front - immediately take center stage, from the nose onto the palate... Cherry impressions are melded into a strong passion fruit flavor - the combination is not entirely unlike fruit punch in flavor... a bit of the mid-palate feel of the beer was very tripel-like, but this is, generally speaking, intendedly transcendent of the style... Helluva good beer - tangy, modestly sweet, a little bit of cherry fruit leather shellac toward the finish, and a bright, sharply tannic drying... There's some farmhousiness about it as well - like a saison or a cellared, fruited beer... Not a go-to take on the style for me normally, but I'm really enjoying this...

Had this again, but on tap at the Good Life in Massapequa, 2/23/22, and I would have written the same review again...

 

 

 

 

 

Canned 02/07/18, it pours cloudy amber rose colored with a 2-3 finger thick off white head that was packed with bubbles of all sizes, dissipating extremely slowly and leaving good spotty lacing.

Smells of cherries, yeast, passion fruit, cracked wheat, barnyard funk, wet cardboard, fruits like grapes and/or rotting pear, candied sugar, spices like pepper and coriander, fruity esters with a sweet finish that has a touch of booze. Like most Belgian beers, it jumps between boozy, sweet and smelling like old sneakers.

The tastes starts out with yeast, toasted grains, caramel, and sweet malts, but the strong fruity notes from the cherries and passion fruit make it much easier to drink and very complex. The cherries balance out the musty funk and earthy notes that normally dominate a Tripel, and the flavor profile has nice tart fruity notes like raspberry, bing cherry, mild strawberries, white grapes and white wine characteristics. Belgian candied sugar mix with mild peppery spices and the boozy kick of the extra malt used to make it a Tripel. A really nice representation of the style, Sand City should make this on a quarterly basis and it's really tasty and enjoyable to drink.

10/20/18-Opened my last can from 02/07/18 release and it was much smoother with less alcohol bite, more malty sweetness, more sweet fruit and fruity candy and basically no yeast or musty accents. I did not expect this beer in a can to improve this well with 8 months of aging. I'm bumping the "Overall' score up from 4.5 to 4.7, which pushed the Rating up from 4.3 to 4.35.