7.5/10
—
Appearance 8
Aroma 8
Flavor 8
Texture 6
Overall 7
Black ('czarne') IPA by this craft brewery in eastern Poland (west of Lublin), shared by Meeki, cheers! Thick and frothy, dense, cobweb-lacing, yellowish pale beige, stable head on a jet black beer. Aroma of coffee grounds and espresso, black peppercorns, dried grapefruit peel, wormwood leaf, unsugared chocolate, wet leather, bayleaf, burnt toast, hard caramel, black tea, pine resin. Dry-fruity onset (dried fig) but restrained in sweetness, medium carbonation, full oily body; toasted walnuts and heavily toasted bread in the malt department, some 'unsweet caramel' in its core but ending in black coffee-like roasted bitterness, amplified by a very firm, leafy and rooty hop bitterness, adding aspects of tonic water, pine resin, dried grapefruit and wormwood leaf, making for a long, dry, spicy finish in which the hops only take over from the roastedness in the very end. Old school Cascadian dark ale, more than decent, though a tad more hop aromatics could perhaps further improve this one; feels like a black IPA of ten years ago. Sadly this interesting style has greatly declined in the States where it comes from, but luckily there are still enough of these now 'outdated', lovely Cascadians around in (especially eastern) Europe and I still love them.
Tried
on 18 Dec 2020
at 23:10