Phantom Ship
Outcast Brewing

 

Growler fill from 5 Vines on day of release
A: Deep amber/nearly brown, medium/high haze, low carbonation/no head
S: Bready, caramel, complex, cooked fruit, herbacious
T: Layered cooked/caramelized fruit, deeply bready, red fruits, complex, sweet
F: Very low carbonation, aqueous, sweet

1L howler, from Sherbrooke Liquor store. Another DIPA, with no indication how it differs from the MTAD from a little while back. At least this brew's name corresponds to the nautical imagery associated with this nascent Cowtown contract operation.

This beer pours a murky, dark apricot amber colour, with one measly finger of weakly puffy, loosely foamy, and mostly just bubbly beige head, which leaves some dissolving limestone cliff lace around the glass as it rather quickly blows off.

It smells of pungent tropical fruit notes (pineapple, guava, and overripe kiwi), bready and doughy caramel malt, a tinge of biscuity toffee, and more leafy, weedy, and wet grassy green hop bitters. The taste is bready and crackery pale malt, some isolated caramel/toffee sugary notes, a muddled domestic and tropical stone fruitiness, and more sassy leafy, grassy, and well-perfumed floral verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is pretty meek in its barely-there frothiness, the body a solid medium weight, and generally smooth, the hops somehow not really into messing about at this particular juncture. It finishes off-dry, the robust fruity essences melding with the lingering mixed malt in a nice twin-axe attack of strangely moderated sweetness.

Overall, this is another mostly well-rendered big IPA, with the near 9 points of alcohol expertly integrated. However, the mouthfeel suffers due to the lack of supportive bubbles, and I'm finding the blame once again being placed on the retailer becoming annoyingly spurious.