Wild Beer Co: Gazillionaire (England: Amber Ale: 4.7% ABV)
Visual: Hazy yellow. Thin white bubbled head.
Nose: Hot cross buns and butter. Lime cordial. Sulphur. Ginger. Lightly sour. Lactose. Orange zest. Toasted tea cakes. Shredded wheat.
Body: Cinnamon bun. Vanilla pods. Very ripe bananas. Toast. Slightly watery mouthfeel. Buttery. Strawberry. Butterscotch. Toffee. Thicker as it warms, and brings out condensed cream and orange crème.
Finish: Buttery. Cinnamon. Toasted teacakes. Light cloves and coriander. Carrot. Butterscotch.
Conclusion: It is odd when you encounter a flavor that is normally viewed as the result of a flaw in the brewing process, but you are fairly sure that, in this case, it is being used deliberately.
In this case I am talking about the buttery and butterscotch flavor encountered. Often a flaw, here it is used alongside the bready notes in a way that matches with their stated inspiration of a Swedish Bun concept beer.
This is a very non standard beer, by look to the eye, and by texture on sipping it seems like a very hand pumped real ale. It has those sulfur notes and that slightly thin mouthfeel that can come with the lighter end of the real ale abv scale.
The flavours are very sweet, with buttery and toffee notes, mixing fruity crème with cinnamon. However due to that slightly thinner texture, and the savoury, bready base. It doesn’t feel super sweet. In fact there is a slightly tart lime cordial like note, quite watered down cordial, but still there. In fact it is very hard to tie this to any one style or set of expectations. A creamy, sweet, yet real ale and sulfur beer.
It is hard to know where I stand on this. People call stout the liquid bread of beer, but, while this is not as filling as a stout, it definitely has more of that bread, nay toast, character. With the spice it is basically cinnabon – the beer. That breadiness is another element that means it is easy to drink despite the sweetness.
It feels to be a good beer to have with pastry food or similar. I don’t love it as a beer, but I certainly don’t hate it. It feels like a beer I never demanded, or would have thought to do so, and I probably will not return to, but have enjoyed this odd moment with.
Background: Normally I try to make up my own mind on beer style, using how the beer identifies itself as a solid guideline, altered by my own impressions. I had no idea for this one, so just looked up what ratebeer said, as fucked if I know. The bottle calls it a “Non-imperial milk not-stout”, which is not helpful in the slightest. The beer was apparently inspired by a Swedish bun, and results in a beer made with lactose, cardamom and vanilla. Because of course. Grabbed from Independent Spirit, this was drunk while listening to Leftover Crack, in preparation of seeing them live the next night. A fun gig, with lots of warm up bands resulting in a huge mash up of varied punk styles.