Devilito
Gruner Brothers Brewing

 

 

wrongly listed here as a strong dark, its a belgian strong pale, golden brew in the duvel style, and a pretty decent effort for an american brewer, at least it avoids a lot of the common american made belgian style pitfalls, including being too generic on the yeast front, to estery to phenolic, having exposed alcohol, gobs of residual sugar, or inadequate textural elements, i think they did a fine job with this. for one the alcohol is sneaky in here, no sign of it at all in the taste, even as it warms up, and the body is light enough to fool me into drinking this like a belgian blonde. second, there is some intrigue on the yeast side, and while nobody would call this old worldy and mistake it for beer made at a monastery, but its got some neat spicy notes including coriander and clove to me, some dried fruitiness like wrinkly apricots and green bananas, and even though its not dry, the yeast works this down to drinkable, despite the high original gravity, not amazing, but pretty good here. lastly, this has a lot of life to it, the carbonation makes it dance and it stays the whole time, love that feeling in this style. beyond all that is some honey character in the grain, a fortified white wine note, and maybe a little caramel thing, white pepper and toasted bread at the end, not wildly complex, but not generic either. overall pretty solid, good to see something traditionally belgian like this happening here in wyoming, a pleasant surprise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On draught at Old Chicago.

Pours a clear straw gold like a typical AAL. Little foam, little lacing.

Smell has some cloves, coriander, both very light.

Flavours are as light as the smell. Cloves, coriander, orange spices?

Light body that gets watery in the finish.

Poor brew.