Fortress of Lies
Varietal Beer Company

 

Pours a dark cola brown. Carbonation is visibly present, and leads up to a nice, good sized head. Settles pretty quickly without much lacing.

Nose is... interesting. It's almost kind of... musky? That's not at all what I was expecting. It must be that 'expressive strain of yeast' the label talks about. I could also see it being described as somewhat nutty, but really it smells of musky animal... like goat or something. Not barnyard in the way of funky saisons, but...
It's not offputting per se, but it's not necessarily a strength in my mind either. Beyond that I could see an argument for some chocolate and faint roast, but truthfully I'm having a hard time getting past that musk.

Flavour gives some of that same musky impression, but it gives way immediately to a very pronounced bright sweetness that is vanilla and like cocoa chocolate. No... it's less cocoa and more chocolate syrup. Waves of sweet eventually give way to a slight bitterness towards the end. Coffee, toasted malts, and that pervasive sticky sweetness round out the finish.
Carbonation is light pinpricks, and the body is the light side of medium. The sweetness makes it seem stickier than it actually is.
Overall this is... well it's somewhat interesting, but ultimately it's not really for me. Part of that is on me, I will admit. When I read tropical double brown and mentions of fruit, in my mind I was kind of hoping that that would come from hops, and that secretly this was going to be another of those brown/porters that's kind of a backdoor CDA, because the world needs more CDAs. It is very much not that, and that's fine on it's own, my misplaced hopes notiwthstanding, but even ignoring that, it's just not to my preference. Too sweet, and while I applaud the boldness of that musky yeast strain, I don't think it really adds much to this particular brew.