4.5

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 4 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 4

Draught pint at Boston Location on 2/8/07
Deep-chestnut stained mahogany brown with garnet highlights and a medium-sized dark beige head that recedes slowly to partial cover and ring. Medium-high to high clarity, light lacing in blotches.
Brown sugar, molasses and melanoidins assault the nose heavily, with an eerily sweet-and-sour sauce sort of effect that combines with green, juicy, but rather earthy hops to produce a fairly authentic, if somewhat too sweet, scotch ale aroma. A light layer of banana and peach, probably the malts combining with some light esters, sits on the end, while sourdough breadiness and a moderate amount of acidity slowly build up. Medium strength of aroma, no alcohol.
Putridly sweet flavor goes much farther than the aroma suggests. Bret Kuhnhenn quickly remarked that the beer tasted worty and I thoroughly agree. It’s not a clean or even adjunct/candi sugar sweetness, not even too much malt. Just a lightly bittersweet, syrupy, unfermented wortiness with some lightly bitter, spicy and earthy hops mixed in. Acidity builds up heavily as does a strong breadiness that fights with the sweetness to attempt some balancing, but neither flavor is particularly enjoyable, the breadiness being too acidic and dull. Dark fruits and melanoidin-like flavors are engulfed in this mix. Slick, almost greasy mouthfeel with moderate carbonation and no alcohol noted in the flavor, aside from some moderate warming. Too worty, very difficult to drink.