Sabazios
Mortalis Brewing Co.

 

From a 16oz can, dated 11/29/21. Served in a spiegelau IPA glass.

Pours an opaque pineapple purée with three fingers of soft, lathery suds. Retention is excellent, leaving a pouffy cap and a tattered curtain of bubbly lacing.

Nose is earthy-grainy. There’s a peachy fruitiness but without any juiciness or sweetness to it, rather a dry, sawdust sort of character. If there were such a thing as freeze-dried beer crystals, this is what I imagine they’d smell like. Not at all an unpleasant aroma, but it doesn’t give me any sense of what the beer will taste like.

Tastes like past-its-prime juice that’s starting to turn, with a semi-harsh, solvent-like booziness. Tasting composting cantaloupe, tangerine rind, grapefruit rind, spruce, mint and sawdust. Boozy, leafy bitterness.

Feel is juicy-creamy, medium-plus bodied with vigorous carbonation. A little resinous on the tongue and distinctly boozy in the gullet.

Overall, OK? I guess. I’ve often noted that bright carbonation can fairly rescue an otherwise heavy or marginal beer and that is definitely the case here. This is a beer that tastes and feels every bit of it’s 8% abv and more to boot. That said, it is my favorite of the 3 Mortalis IPA’s I’ve had in the past week.

This one pours a very hazy golden yellow color, with a small head, and lots of lacing.

This smells like big candied citrus, lime, some booze, and slight pine.

This is some nice stuff, with a great fluffy and candied sweet citrus character from the hops, some sweet lime, with a slight bitterness, and just a touch of leafy and boozy bitterness as the beer warms up.

This is creamy, and very soft, with a pretty solid smoothness and drinkability to it.

This is a pretty unique hop combo, and it works pretty well for me.