Drygate: Outaspace Apple Ale (Scotland: Fruit Beer : 4% abv)
Visual: Clean gold. Some carbonation. Large sudden mound white head that leaves trails.
Nose: Apple. Vanilla. Bitter and wheaty. Lemon.
Body: Smooth. Golden syrup. Banana syrup. Apples. Hop oils. Syrupy texture. Floral touches. Honey. Dried apricot. Dessert wine.
Finish: Hop oil bitterness. Golden syrup and hops. Apple. Mead. Rising hop feel.
Conclusion: Holy shit this is so bloody sweet. Like, pass me a syringe and some insulin level sweet. This thing is thick, like a mix of honey and golden syrup – then dosed with hop oils, so kind of like a hopped mead.
No it doesn’t really work – with a description like that did you really expect it to? I mean it is odd, and fascinating as all get out. Fresh apples dropped into the mead mix, fresh notes all on top of the thickest, sweetest thing I have run into for a while. Fascinating, but for once fascinating can’t win me over.
It is just too sweet, too one note – the big difference is the hop oils but they seem to flow separately from the sweet mead flavours – so instead of getting one integrated beer you get two disjointed ones.
That said, while pretty much every note was wrong I didn’t, ya know, hate this. Each element was done well – the brewing led to a clear delivery of the elements – nothing is indistinct. It is just, well, none of the well made elements are the ones that should be there. They managed to brew just right all the wrong elements to put together.
Probably the best crafted beer that I just plain don’t get along with. Yes that is damning with faint praise.
Background: Grabbed this from Independent Spirit as it looked interesting, an apple ale made with Calypso, Nelson Sauvin and Citra hops. Was drunk to try and refresh me during the absurdly muggy heat we have had recently. Well absurd for a Yorkshireman anyway .. bloody heat. Drunk while listening to Scroobius Pip’s Distraction Pieces album.