Social Mosaic
Dark City Brewing Co.

A thanks to the creator of the canquest, woodychandler, for this beer, Poured from a 16 oz. can. Has a bright yellow color with a 1 1/2 inch head. Smell is of tart lemons. Taste is the same as the aroma, but the tartness is milder, sry and easy drinking. Feels medium bodied in the mouth and overall is a decent beer.

Welcome back to my Happy New Summer in the Dark with a Beer in the City Sunday (Week 757)!

This Summer was time well spent here at Chez Woody, allowing me to winnow through the backlog & assemble lots of brewery horizontals for each week's NBS. For insCANce, this week's foray into Asbury Park, NJ's Dark City B.C., including this beer as a part of The CANQuest (tm).

From the CAN: Berliner Weisse Brewed w/Mosaic & Milk Sugar".

Once again, I did some in-CAN agitation before Crack!ing open the vent since clarity was not a CANcern in this style. Once opened, I beCAN a C-Line Glug that produced two-plus fingers of foamy, soapy, rocky, bone-white head with impressive retention. Color was a deeply-hazy/lightly-cloudy Straw-Yellow (SRM = > 2, < 4). Nose smelled very tropical, mostly pineapple & mango, but it seemed more appetizing to me than the previous one. Mouthfeel was thin & watery, about on par for the style's course. The taste was odd, less like a Berliner Weisse & more towards a Gose. I could swear that I tasted salt! Needless to say, the taste did NOT match the nose! Far from it. It was not sour, it was barely tart, and it lacked focus. It had a semi-lemony taste, but I have to agree with @napoleonsays in that cheap lemonade mix would be more flavorful. Finish was semi-dry, but uninteresting. It was less "bad" than "ho-hum". YMMV.

Horrible. It says on the can it’s brewed with mosaic. Ummm. I couldn’t tell. Overpowering sour taste. I’d rather have some dollar store lemonade mixed with seltzer. I made a beer advocate account simply to say how horrible this beer is. I can’t believe I wasted $5 on it!

 

A - Hazy straw yellow with thin lacing.

S - Bright citrus and funk dominate the nose.

T - Funky, juicy citrus up front with slight puckering, and finishes with a lingering cereal grain.

M - Medium body.

O - Starts great but not crazy about the grainy finish.

 

16 oz can poured into a Sam Adams Perfect Pint glass.

Appearance
Extra hazy straw-blonde. 1+ fingers of loose white head. Lively carbonation.

Nose
Lemon, vanilla, SweeTarts, barnyard, peach, passion fruit, and mango.

Taste
Pretty strong lactic sourness but it's also softened by the milk sugar. Lemon juice, peach juice, SweeTarts, and slight vanilla. Moderate barnyard funkiness. Mango and passion fruit. Bready undertones.

Mouthfeel
Medium bodied, silky, and sour.

Overall
It's interesting. The milk sugar helps to cut the sour.

Extremely loose knit head, crests quickly above a finger and vanishes swiftly thereafter, leaving barely a trace across the surface, was bright white while it lasted, zero lacing. The lightness of the yellow straw color in the liquid plays up the haziness and allows you to see all the particulate floating throughout, the bubbles move at a nice pace and just close enough to form beads. Lemon out the wazoo, the nose totally citrus dominated, peppery and herbaceous, mineral water, coal tar shampoo, sharp edged papaya, guava, pineapple fruit scents, very active and does not wear out easily. In the mouth it comes across as medium-bodied, puckering with a vinous feel. The carbonation has nice pinpoint prickle, fits the general character. Again the lemon citrus pervasive, maybe some tangerine in reserve. No funkiness and not anywhere near as grassy as the nose suggests. Hard to see where the milk sugar comes in, maybe adds body or creaminess at the finish, hard to say it adds sweetness. Medicinal profile, bitters, the fruit on the main pineapple, apricot, papaya, not especially juicy. It’s an interesting brew which holds your attention but would wear you down over the course of an evening. Best with a good chill on it.

Dark City Brewing Co. "Social Mosaic"
1 Pint can, coded "LOOK BACK AT IT 3/01/2018" and sampled on 4/26/2018
$4.99 @ Total Wine & More, Cherry Hill, NJ

Notes via stream of consciousness: "BERLINER WEISSE BREWED W/ MOSAIC & MILK SUGAR". Well I'm a big fan of Mosaic hops but not necessarily lactose so let's see. It's poured a cloudy yellow gold body beneath a short head of bright white that's dwindled before my eyes, of course that happens with sour beers. It looks a bit like a glass of orange juice at this point. The aroma is mild. There's some mineralish character, a very light waft of floral character, a hint of acidity, some lemon zest and pith, and a hint of apricot. The flavor is much fuller, clearly showing acidity, and fruit. I'm finding berries, tangerine, lemon, papaya, and apricot. As would be expected there's very little bitterness as none is needed. It's nice, pleasant, and refreshing. Nicely balanced. It's not too acidic, certainly not puckering, nor too mineralish or funky. In the mouth it's light-medium in body and delicately crisp with some additional bite from the acidity, and I guess, additional body due to the lactose - so it worked out well. Overall I find it quite enjoyable, and though not really a Berliner weisse, it's a very nice sour beer. I'd say it's worth trying, and even seeking out for fans of the style.
Review# 5,975