Burbank Series No. 2
Troubled Monk Brewery

355ml can - the second in the 'Burbank Series', where they and neighbours Blindman Brewing collaborate on a joint offering. Man, could they have made the marketing blurb's type size any smaller?

This beer pours a clear, pale golden straw colour, with three fingers of puffy, finely foamy, and somewhat fizzy off-white head, which leaves some scattered and streaky lace around the glass as it lazily evaporates.

It smells of acrid orange, red grapefruit, and lemon rind, gritty and grainy cereal malt, some hard water flintiness, and more floral, weedy, and piney green hop bitters. The taste is grainy and crackery pale malt, mixed domestic citrus peel, a further indistinct tropical fruitiness, some damp minerality, and a plain leafy, musty, and piney hoppiness.

The carbonation is fairly active in its palate-clobbering frothiness, the body a so-so medium weight, and mostly smooth, with just a touch of hop astringency maybe not making nice with the local kids here. It finishes well, dry, but not quite of the bone variety.

Overall - this comes across as a pleasant enough rendition of this emerging style, almost mouth-puckering, and with a perfectly integrated extra 2 points of ABV, pretty easy to put back. Great stuff!