6.2

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6

Draught at the brewery, 11/2/18.
Deep amber-to-overripe-peach, good clarity, with a small, somewhat dense, peach-tinted, beige head.
Smells medicinal/smokey/melanoidin-rich in the nose, with definite wood smoke undertones, though certainly not full-on campfire, bacon or lush, rich, dense smoke that you get from a lot of Schlenkerlas et al. Maybe about half way between Schlenkerla's Helles and Marzen. Malts also provide a lot of honey, caramel and fruitier melanoidins, with red berry, light peach and apple noted. Some lingering vanilla and a touch of sharp alcohol or other ester.
In the mouth it's soft, rich and fairly sweet with more phenol/melanoidin/medicinal "smoke" character than actual overt smokiness. Sort of an old, woody, faded smokiness with pepper and medicinal notes lingering. A bit of plastic and popcorn, unfortunately with sharp, almost glue-like ester/alcohol, as well. Low, fairly engaging carbonation and enough attenuation but just not enough smoke, nor is the clarity of it good. Muddled and messy with too much overripe fruit, glue/plastic/popcorn and somewhat overly sugary as it gets near the bottom of the glass. A valiant attempt, however and a lot of good things going on here nonetheless.