Into the Mystic
Farnham Ale & Lager - Vermont Laboratory

 

 

Picked-up a four-pack of cans at Kappy's in Norwell for about fourteen dollars. Canned-on date of 1/9/19. Have never heard of or seen this brew before. Not good at all. Nothing resembling milkshake, couldn't even finish the can.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can dated 08/09/2018.
This was poured into a tulip.
The appearance was a thick opaque burnt orange to copper color with a sturdy finger's worth of white foamy head that slid off adequately to leave some thick lace leaving some rings here and there.
The aroma had some vanilla and a creamy sweet soapiness. Light coconut sticky sweetness. Sweet nuts with some toast and herbal character closer to the end.
The flavor yields to the sweetness of the entire blend of the aromatics. Mild tropical fruity notes please my taste buds. Aftertaste has some coconut, tropical fruits, sun tan lotion/soapiness (but acceptable to me, mostly).
The mouthfeel was about medium bodied with a fair sipping quality about it. Carbonation felt low which is good for the style. ABV felt on par. Smooth creamy finish just like a milkshake DIPA should feel.
Overall, not one of Farnham's better offerings but does the trick if one is looking for a milkshake DIPA in Vermont.

Pint can. 8/3/18 " we were born before the wind". Opened on 8/24/18

This one has a very strange color. Opaque, milkshake style thickness within a muddy gold/Amber and orange with a thick white haze. The white foamy top leave s a dense cover and a bit of lace.

The aroma is about as strange as the appearance. Musky citrus, wet earth, vanilla and creamy sweetness, medicinal tonics, grapefruit with dried herbs. The hop nose is odd, especially with the vanilla smell and lactose thickness. Strange and interesting.

The flavor is even stranger than all that! The hops bring in dry earthy citrus, funky-herbal and musky-wheat tones, the vanilla bean and lactose gives off of huge amount of sweetness and adds a thick bodied, sweet and smooth thing in both feel and flavor. The hop complexity and creamy effect = Weird. Unique, odd but strangely interesting. This brew is straight Frankenstein.

There is a densely charred-herbs and Woody flavor that I don't care for...but all other elements are weird enough to make me interested. If your mind is not wide open, think twice about trying this.

The mouthfeel is rather thick, smooth, chunky and hefty due to the lack of and vanilla adjuncts. A fresh, feeling happens first as the vanilla milk shake style texture comes riding in. Bazaar stuff man.

to call this an ipa is a gross generosity, but even more, the beer just isnt that great. i had high hopes for it after enjoying their house ipa, but this really let me down. for one, it took forever to pour from the nitro tap and never really did its cascade thing, the whole glass just sort of stayed foam, which is in part to say that it looks like foam, whitewashed and thick, milky even, really pretty unattractive color for a beer, even accepting the hazy thing its going for, looks raw. the nose is fine and so is the taste, more vanilla than hops, but notes of grapefruit and lime that kind of clash with the vanilla rather than make it seem like any kind of milkshake, the ipa element really isnt there for me. more lactose than it needs too, the vanilla takes care of the rich and creamy parts of this, and i found the added sweetness and weight unneeded and even unappealing. overall a beer with a lot of potential, the vanilla element is nice and the hops seem fresh and all, but this is a total follower not a leader, and one of the least refined beers we had in here overall. in need of some adjusting. its also a little boozy, they part should be scaled back a bit too. meh for now, at least from the tap...