ACME Red
Blind Enthusiasm Brewing Company

500ml glass at Biera in Ritchie - a collaboration with the dude who runs the Acme meat market in the same building.

This beer appears a clear, bright medium bronzed amber colour, with two fingers of puffy, finely foamy, and caked ecru head, which leaves some layered ribbon lace around the glass as it slowly sinks away.

It smells of bready and doughy caramel malt, some muddled domestic citrus rind, a Pez-esque candy character, some hard water flintiness, and more leafy, weedy, and piney green hop bitters. The taste is gritty and grainy caramel malt, a lesser biscuity toffee sweetness, a hint of earthy yeastiness, still hard to parse citrus peel, and more understated leafy, herbal, and floral verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is fairly active in its supportive frothiness, the body a solid middleweight, and generally smooth, with perhaps a soupcon of generic bitterness taking things down a notch or so here. It finishes trending dry, the malt bleeding out, while the mostly big 'C' hops carry on carryin' on.

Overall - this is certainly a pleasant enough version of the style, with the hops doing well to provide balance, without overwhelming the whole deal. Easy to put back, especially given the 14-proof booze quotient, which is expertly integrated. Good, good stuff!