In Hops We Trust
Outcast Brewing

 

 

 

1L howler from Sherbrooke liquor store, the latest hoppy offering from this brewer who briefly dabbled in a coffee stout (which was stellar in its own right), and I suspect started pining (no pun intended) for a return to the fold.

This beer pours a murky, medium apricot amber colour, with two fingers of puffy, loosely foamy, and rather bubbly eggshell-white head, which leaves some decent exploding ocean spume lace around the glass as it readily recedes.

It smells of robust blood orange, red grapefruit, and lemon/lime citrus flesh, gritty and grainy pale malt, a lesser caramelized wheatiness, some further muddled tropical fruit notes, a hint of raw onion, and more leafy, weedy, and piney green hop bitters. The taste is bready and doughy cereal malt, wet wheat crackers, mixed domestic citrus rind, a gentle scallion astringency, some pineapple, guava, and mango exotic fruitiness, ephemeral dead yeast, and more earthy, musty, and resinous piney verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is adequate in its palate-coddling frothiness, the body a solid middleweight, and quite smooth, with a nice straightforward creaminess pretty much there from the get-go. It finishes off-dry, the complex malt, and even more robust hops playing a game of pleasing flavour leapfrog.

Overall - this is yet another hopped to the nuts brew from Patrick and the, well, just Patrick, I guess. At any rate, both the malt and the hops share a busyness that plays out a lot better than one might have imagined (no 'too many cooks spoil the broth' deal here). A fantastic offering to drink on its own, or as an accompaniment to Canuck Thanksgiving, which for me means my homemade pasta. Yeah.