Darkness Peering
Apex Brewing

1L howler from the good ol' Sherbrooke likka sto', the only establishment in E-town that can lay claim to be pouring this very newish offering, the apparent third in the 'Nevermore' series (makes sense, I guess, but where were the first two, eh?). At any rate, I can't help but be reminded of the Simpsons' classic early series takeoff on EAP's 'The Raven' (as initially spoken by Lisa).

This beer pours a fairly solid black abyss, but for some prominent orange cola basal edges, and two fat-ass fingers of chunky, foamy, and bubbly beige head, which leaves some decent melting limestone cliff lace around the glass as it evenly subsides.

It smells of lightly roasted caramel malt, bittersweet cocoa powder, muddled zesty citrus notes, a hint of holiday season mintiness, further generic black orchard fruit, and a heady leafy, piney, and herbal green hoppiness. The taste is bready and grainy pale and caramel malt, free-range wet ash, still hard to discern citrus entrants to this game of attrition, some earthy spice, and more testy weedy, piney, and estery floral hop bitterness.

The bubbles are pretty low-key in their understated and plebeian frothiness, the body a decent enough medium weight, and mostly smooth, both the ashiness and the hops keeping things well within the norms, as such. It finishes off-dry, the roast, cocoa, mixed citrus and green hop bitters the most prominent lingerers.

Overall, this is indeed a pleasant enough CDA or ABA (but not a Black IPA - WTF is up with that?), the blend of stout/porter and IPA well rendered. I suppose that I shouldn't get too attached to this one, as yeah, next week shall offer another iteration of some curious volume of forgotten lore, borne of a fascination for Lenore. Fuck that - cue some 'Heart of Darkness', not from Joseph Conrad, but the freaking Headstones!