Frosé Hydra Deuce
Mortalis Brewing Co.

 

Murky brownish color. Cherry dominates the fruit flavors with plenty of graham cracker and light cinnamon. Decent balance of flavors; fairly dessert-like. Medium to light bodied.

Poured from a can into a pint glass. Pours deep raspberry red with little head. Smells of fruit and chocolate. Tastes of chocolate and raspberry, like cake. Beer is medium bodied yet easy drinking, good carbonation. Overall, a very good beer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

16oz. can into a Founders snifter.

This one's a muddy purple. Dominated by the blackberry addition. Nose is cinnamon, graham cracker, blackberry, cherry, and sweet cream. Aromatic. Nice. Beer opens unmistakably cinnamon up front. Graham cracker sugariness and signature spice is also quickly apparent. I get blackberry, raspberry, and cherry in the middle. Juicy, pulpy, and sweet. Vanilla and cream overtones towards the back make this one a bit of a disjointed experience but still delicious. Body is medium to full with moderate to ample carbonation. Prickly, pulpy, and juicy on the palate and goes down slimy. This is a fruit smoothie and drinks like one.

Not the best of the Hydra series but if you're in the mood for a fruit smoothie, this one still does the job.

No canning date. Can to snifter.

Look: Pours a dark red with the murkiness of thick fruit puree. Neither head nor lacing, but some fruit pulp residue coating the glass. Floaters of vanilla, graham cracker and fruit sediment can be found all over the place.

Smell: Mainly cherry and graham cracker, but blackberry, vanilla and cinnamon are also detectable. Sweet and fruity.

Taste: Nice balance of slightly tart fruity notes and a pastry sweetness. Cherry up front, followed by blackberry, vanilla, cinnamon and graham cracker. Apricot is also there.

Feel: Very thick. Quite smooth with some sharper notes. Low carbonation.

Overall: Typical Hydra that drinks like an alcoholic smoothie. Even though the cherry notes are dominating here, everything else finds its place as well leading to a very nicely balanced beer with a complex yet well-adjusted flavor profile. Not the best Mortalis I‘ve had, but definitely a very good one.

Finally, #4... pint into tulip.

L: No real head or lacing here. It looks like a berry juice left to age and thicken into a sludge.

S: Wow! I sensed the cinnamon, vanilla, and graham cracker above the fruit before even reading the label. That's quite an odd combination.

T: Tart like a berry sour, of course, but also interesting... the only way to describe it is a berry pie. It's not that tart after the first sip. The vanilla is quite good, too. I can sense it, but it feels like it fits. Otherwise, it's mostly blackberry cobbler to me.

F: Mid to full-bodied. Not much carbonation, but the taste lingers. Somewhat dry finish. It's not as sweet as you expect, although I feel like the sides of my mouth disagree with my tongue.

This is a weird one front to back for me. Don't think I have had a lot of kettle sours like this, but it's great for anyone who likes sweet or sour things. Which I sure do. Oh yes. Don't look at the candy stash in my closet.

I can't say that this is an attractive beer ... or even a beer, by all appearances. Thick and smoothie-like, with a ton of sediment that gets deposited on the glass instead of lacing. It looks ... bad. Completely opaque and murky.

Smell is wonderful, with notes is chocolate, graham cracker, cinnamon, berries, apricot, and cream. There's something a bit flat or off about the nose, however; something hard to put my finger on, not quite metallic, perhaps an aspect of the graham cracker.

Unsurprisingly, it's thick but lively on the palate; a touch grainy. No impression of alcohol on the palate.

Flavor is essentially indistinguishable from a berry smoothie at the mall or gym. No hint of the off-note from the nose. Everything comes to play: graham cracker, cinnamon, cherry, vanilla, blackberry. The apricot is perhaps the least noticeable, or fades the quickest. The melange is unmistakably smoothie-like; blind, the only thing that would at all give away the beer aspect, as little as it is, would be the carbonation. Otherwise, it's a smoothie in every way. Hell, it almost tastes healthy!

What a strange but delicious trip.

 

 

 

One of my last from the Extreme Beer Box. Poured into a tulip glass. Bold purple color with a brief effervescent head and little lacing. The smell and taste are a cacophony of aromas and flavors. The blackberry and sweet cherries are up front, with the cinnamon and graham crackers following, followed by hints of the vanilla and apricot. Smooth, almost sludgy feel. A very pleasant treat.

#118, yummy!

Pint can from Extreme Beer Box 2022, in a stemmed tulip glass.

Great looking pour; black cherry soda slush-like texture and look. Fizzy head that drops to nothing in a flash. No lacing. Sour is as sours look.

Aroma blast- cherry, cinnamon, vanilla, berry mix, brown sugar coated graham crackers. The spices are deep rooted in the aroma yet a sour element gets through, too.

The taste is an exact duplicate of the aromas. Lots of cinnamon and sugar and berries and cherry.

Smooth…and…sour…sweet, acidic. The slush gives it a full feel. Tart throughout.

Unique, extreme, and tasty.

Record in the BeerAdvocate Extreme Beerfest box 2022
Appearance: Well, gorgeous purple sludge. I mean the color is pretty. The head is lighter, heading toward a pinkish lavender color, but only rising a finger or so, and quickly tapering off.
Smell is divine. A true melange of blackberry, cherry, vanilla, and lightly sweet grain. But the fruit blend is most pleasing.
Flavor definitely brings even more lush complexity. The cherry is more evident here, but the berry notes assert themselves as well: blackberry & boysenberry. The vanilla is ever present but so elegantly folded in. As the beer warms, the apricot brings in some nice chewy stone fruit notes, both overripe apricot and dried apricot hints ebb and flow. An undercurrent of sweet, crackery grain must be the graham cracker. And finally, as this gem continues to warm an essence of the cinnamon peaks in at the back or my upper throat and sinuses. A minor acidity comes through near the end.
Mouthfeel is a bit pulpy and chewy, but it works. carbonation is light and finishes a tad acidic.
Overall, this is hella unique and an exquisite experiment. Would love to share this one with friends a few times a year.