The Last Mango
Fuggles Beer

 

Cloudy mango-orange color. The head quickly turned into medium sized bubbles and dropped down to a patchy skiff. Too cloudy to see the carbonation level. No lacing.

Funky sweet fruit smell. The fruit is a blend of orange and something else. It doesn't really smell like mango (note that it is currently mango season and I have been eating 2 or 3 mangoes each week, so I am very familiar with the smell of both red and yellow mangoes). There is some odd smell like a plastic off-gassing that I can't identify.

The flavor is a blend of biscuit or graham cracker malt and yeast, with some lighter, mildly sweet fruit. Does not have the resin (or sometimes turpentine) flavor that mango normally has. The aftertaste turns a little tart as the fruit works to the foreground. The aftertaste has more mango in it with a bit of orange citrus.

Light tongue tingling as it turns into a coarse foam. Medium body. Slightly astringent.

Generally pleasant flavor. The mango was done with a light touch, leaving it not very distinct. A lot of the more resinous aspects of mango were missing, so this appeals to people who don't usually like mango (like my wife). Has an unusual scent, like fresh plastic off-gassing. The malt and yeast forward makes this tastes more like a beer than a cooler.

Part of a flight of four at Rogue in Waterfront station.
Decent, but an uninspiring wit drunk in a damp climate in late autumn. (In summer, I might be more refreshed and offer a more positive rating.)

My first from Fuggles & Warlock, I went on their website and like their mission of "Keeping Beer Weird." Reminds me of the Austin Texas campaign to "Keep Austin Weird." It is important to preserve that which is different. The F&W motto is part of creative label art that really is subtle marketing in which the new weird is not extreme. And for that, I give F&W a big OA hug.

 

 

 

 

A: Looks like mango juice. Opaque with minimal head.
S: Mangoes plus some yeast.
T: Mango flavour present, but it's on the dry side, not sweet.
F: Overly fizzy.

 

 

I picked this bomber up at the Raven liquor store in Deep Cove because it was part of a Fuggles & Warlock display at the front. Maybe it's the time of year or maybe I was expecting something more like Badger Brewery's Golden Glory from back home but, like the first reviewer, I found this a little underwhelming.

Let's start with the positives: I actually like the bottle's artwork. It matches the idea of the beer well. When it pours, the beer looks like someone has mixed mango juice with fizzy water and that's pretty cool.

The nose is a typical wit with little hint of the mango promised on the bottle. The taste then: it's a straight up wit with hint of over-ripe stone fruit/orange......but only a hint. And this is the first beer of the night so my taste buds have not been destroyed by anything else. It's the over-ripeness of the fruit that spoils this for me. It hits the back of the throat in a similar way to the fuity beers from Storm. In other words, it's fun to taste a fruity beer in small batches but drinking a pint of it or a bomber, in this case, is a struggle for me.

However, it's winter and this is really a summer beer so perhaps I should try it again in July and review it again. There's a funkiness that you just don't get with Golden Glory (where the peach blossom adds an incredibly drinkable character in the warmer months) but I'm open to trying it again. This is the first Fuggles' beer I've tasted so I will definately try more and support our local beer industry.

650ml bottle - man, these two dudes really have a fascination with Japanese culture, eh? Including all the creepy female anime stuff, apparently.

This beer pours a damned-near opaque, fresh-squeezed mango juice colour, with one skinny-ass finger of weakly foamy, and mostly just wispy dirty white head, which leaves but a few specks of sudsy paint blotch lace around the glass as it quickly blows off. Why do mango brews always have to be so turbid? Late additions?

It smells of musty generic orchard stone fruit, further orange and red grapefruit citrus, bready and doughy wheaten malt, a subtle Belgian yeastiness, faint earthy spices, and very timid leafy and floral green hop bitters. The taste is mango juice, fleshy orange and bland grapefruit, cereal-forward wheat malt, a lesser pale graininess, mild hints of sugary lactose, genial earthy yeast, a fading blended witbier spiciness, and more tame weedy and floral hoppiness.

The carbonation is fairly understated in its quotidian frothiness, the body a decent medium weight, and mostly smooth, I suppose, as the yeast retreats, and the guest fruitiness doesn't have the gonads to fuck around here. It finishes off-dry, with a strong stone fruitiness, and a lingering mixed malt that probably couldn't find its own ass with both hands.

Overall, this is basically an underwhelming wankfest of a brew, with the mango present, sure, but hardly in its best guise - more musty than sexy and fruity and all that. It's not bad, but I feel like there is a whole lost in translation vibe permeating my short-term relationship with this offering.