The Mad Elf Grand Cru
Tröegs Independent Brewing in Hershey, Pennsylvania, United States 🇺🇸
Belgian Style - Quadrupel / Dark Strong Rotating|
Score
7.30
|
|
If you know Tröegs, you know The Mad Elf, the mischievous belle of the holiday beer ball that helped put our little brewery on the map. In your hands is the Director’s Cut. Tart Balaton cherries – loads of them – make all the difference. Bottle-conditioned and flush with notes of cinnamon and clove, this beer begs to be shared. Take a bottle home, gather your friends, and cherish the cherries.
Sign up to add a tick or review
7.6/10
—
Appearance 8
Aroma 8
Flavor 7
Texture 8
Overall 7.5
Poured from bottle cherry color with a tan head. Aromas of cherry brown sugar cinnamon. Taste is fresh cherry sugar mild spice. Wow this will be amazing in a year. --- Beer merged from original tick of Mad Elf Grand Cru on 27 Jan 2018 at 18:53 - Score: 8
Tried
from Bottle
on 27 Jan 2018
at 23:52
7.2/10
—
Appearance 6
Aroma 7
Flavor 8
Texture 6
Overall 8
Chalumeaux with this 750 ml bottle. Ruby appearance with thin lasting white head. Aroma is cherry skins, candy sugar, yeast. The flavor is huge cherry skins, honey notes, yeast, with huge lasting cherry finish. Honestly, I feel like this is to young. Booze is a tad forward, hot. This should age nice.
Tried
from Bottle
on 27 Jan 2018
at 23:43
7/10
—
Appearance 6
Aroma 7
Flavor 7
Texture 6
Overall 8
Thanks TJ. nice clarity, it's a blood red, well filtered. It smells pretty damn good. Sweet and bitter. cherry presence, some banana, grape, kiwi, mango. but with a hearty malty aroma..just a little bit of shoe oil. This is tasty. It's even a little sour in the middl from the cherry. finish is juicy cherry with lettuce and fermented orange juice. lingering oily booze. up front, malty sweet. This is really tasty.
Tried
on 27 Jan 2018
at 23:37
8.5/10
—
Appearance 8
Aroma 8
Flavor 9
Texture 8
Overall 9
750 ml bottle into tulip glass, bottled on 10/31/2017. Pours fairly crystal clear dark ruby red/brownish color with a 1-2 finger fairly dense cream colored head with good retention, that reduces to a thin cap that lingers. Nice spotty soapy lacing clings on the glass, with a fair amount of streaming carbonation retaining the cap. Aromas of big juicy/lightly tart red/black cherries, fruit skin, raisin, plum, fig, date, pear, red apple, caramel, honey, brown sugar, and brown bread crust; with lighter notes of almond, roast, banana, cinnamon, peppercorn, clove, and yeast earthiness. Damn nice aromas with great balance and complexity of fruity/spicy yeast, cherries, sugar, honey, and dark/bready malt notes; with great strength. Taste of huge juicy/lightly tart red/black cherries, fruit skin, raisin, plum, fig, date, pear, red apple, caramel, honey, brown sugar, and brown bread crust; with lighter notes of almond, roast, banana, cinnamon, peppercorn, clove, and yeast earthiness. Light yeast spiciness and fruit tang/tartness on the finish. Lingering notes of tart red/black cherries, fruit skin, raisin, plum, fig, date, pear, red apple, caramel, honey, brown sugar, brown bread crust, almond, banana, cinnamon, peppercorn, clove, and yeast earthiness on the finish for a while. Incredible complexity, robustness, and balance of fruity/spicy yeast, cherries, sugar, honey, and dark/bready malt flavors; with a great malt/tart/spiciness balance; and zero cloying/puckering flavors after the finish. Lightly increasing dryness from yeast spiciness and tart/tangy fruit. Medium carbonation and medium-full body; with a smooth, creamy/bready, and sticky/tangy/acidic balanced mouthfeel that is great. Alcohol is very well hidden; a mildly increasing warmth of 11% lingering after the finish. Overall this is an amazing fruited Belgian strong dark ale! All around incredible complexity, robustness, and balance of fruity/spicy yeast, cherries, sugar, honey, and dark/bready malt flavors; very smooth and dangerously easy to sip on; with the mellowly tart/tangy/spicy/drying finish. Definitely a big improvement over the base beer. Very similar profile on yeast/malt/sugar complexity, but the Balaton cherry presence is enormous. They definitely used a lot more fruit than the base beer. Perfectly balanced between all flavors. A highly enjoyable offering.
Tried
from Bottle
on 01 Jan 2018
at 19:23
7/10
Tried
from Bottle
on 17 Nov 2017
at 20:30
9/10
Reminds me of 2012-13 Elf. Stronger cherry prescence. Not made for generally public. Fucking top.
Tried
from Bottle
on 15 Nov 2017
at 18:58