Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
Bottle from OhioDad; Nose of coffee and caramel, a little roasty; Transparent brown with a few bubbles around the glasses side; Roasty malt flavor with caramel, coffe,e chocolate, and a little bit of hops in the finish.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7
bottle - Pours amber and clear with a one finger head. There’s a good hoppy aroma. The flavor is moderately bitter with the hops bite I expect from an APA. There’s a moderate body and the hops carry through to the finish. It’s not complicated or outstanding, but this is a fairly solid brew.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 3 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 3.5
Bottle from the sale rack at Foremost, Oak Forest. I suspect I’m sampling from the same batch as the previous raters, cause this bottle may be pretty aged. It opens with a surprisingly sweet smell, first fruity then a bit winey. Pours way too dark for a light beer. Not quite cloudy, but there are a few floaties visible. Just a light scum of bubbles. Taste is a little less interesting. Just a light, oxidized malt with some corn sweetener. Thin, watery texture. Geez, and I thought when I smelled it they might have added a grape tannin or something to make it really "Italian." But it’s just olf. I will try a fresh one sometimes.
Meantime, I notice our listing for Cugino Brewing’s web site just returns a placeholder search page. If this stuff is still being brewed, it’s not controlled from Batavia, anymore.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 9
Pour is a dark red with a large white head. Aroma is strong amounts of rye with some hops to even out the bitterness. Flavor is a nice mix of hops and cane sugar. Very pleasing to all the sences. Of all the "rye" beers i have had this is prob the only one i could actually taste and smell the rye used. Very good and satisfying.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
This starts out with a small head of off-white over a clear orange/amber body. Light flowery hops and malt aroma. Moderately bitter throughout, dry finish. Seems to be more of an English Pale than American but in any case, I fail to pick out any particular hop variety much less an American one. Overall this isn’t a bad brew. The commercial description is a good summary. Thanks to Dough77 for sending this one.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8
22 oz. Bottle. Interesting pour. Belgian type sugary smell accented by a grassy spicy hop nose. Pours nice brown which lets light shine through red, and lots of pinprick bubbles. Taste is a nice spicy surprise. I don’t know if I can pick out a rye beer blind, but this has a definite rye bread taste. Sweetness is not overdone, except for slightly masking the slightly Scots malts. The hops I find really intriguing, like Amarillo whupped by pine branches. A combination of lots of big flavors, all working together in some weird way. I can’t find the alcohol either, but I suspect I will notice it later.
oh6gdx (51139) reviewed Hop Centric from Two Brothers Brewing Company 19 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8
Bottled. Dark hazy orange colour, mediumsized creamy off-white head. Aroma is hops and yeast. Flavour is hoppy, grassy and alcoholic. The alcohol and hops reaches their peaks in the finish and leave a wellbalanced flavour afterwards.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 8
Bomber bottle. When I’m hit with a nice "beer" smell as I pop the cap, I know I can’t go too far wrong with my choice. This has that kind of smell. Pours a very orange body, under a very thin bubbly head. Taste is hard to pick out those black peppercorns. It’s very malty, and sticky as generic pancake syrup. Lots of honey and some Belgian malts goes into this, too. Hops seem to have been held back to make room for the pepper, but that just punches up the malt taste more.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 5.5
Best before July 2006 bottle consumed on 6/8/06. Leaving the light sediment in the bottle makes for a highly clear, soft goldenrod body with brass tints and a small, fairly short-lived white head that leaves splotchy lacing. Soft but apparent orange zest in the nose brings spiciness, while wheat balances this and the coriander provides a nutty and slightly peppery tone. Not much in the way of bubble gum, but with a very crisp, snappy yeast that trails off on the end, almost perfume-like. The strength of the nose is only medium, however, and the high attenuation leaves a lot of room for the orange peel and coriander to roam. Not that it is overdone, but the malt just does not show up. Needs some fluffier, deeper honey and wafer notes. The flavor is similarly spiced, deriving from the lacking malt, though the beer doesent seem thin or overly watery for its strength. Just very dry, with only slight notes of biscuits, cream and vanilla. Grassy, lively and juicy (citrus), the carbonation helps carry the liquid along in a moderately engaging sense. A prominent wetness appears, however, as it warms, and it becomes perilously close to being watery. Still, nothing is overdone, just rather simple and spiced, with light, clean yeast (relative to style).
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6
Draught pint at Redbones on 06/06/06.
Dark caramel-toffee body shows medium to medium-high clarity, with strong cherry red highlights and a bit of mahogany in the middle. Head is one-finger in height, butter yellow and rapidly diminishes to partial cover and then ring.
A good deal of roast in the nose opens things up, showing strong dryness and even a touch of bready, crunchy malts. Caramel sweetness is slow to follow and combines to give a buttercream-like note that is somewhat softer than the roasty malts up front. Not exactly deep and pillowy, though nor is it syrupy and underattenuated. Yeasty, lightly so, with some nuttiness and maybe a soft kiss of leafy, soily hops.
The flavor is toasty, with light coffee and anise keeping things dry. Caramel only comes out upon warming, with more chewy texture than sweetness. Far from fat and deep, the malts are rather highly attenuated as this brewer is known for. But you can still sense the caramelization in the kettle, even if not much residual sweetness is present. As the caramel runs in to the roast and dries out, some very light apples and cherries bounce around in the background. Carbonation is moderate, though the bubbles are a bit large and unwieldly. Alcohol is not noted. Some light phenolic dryness and a pinch of hazelnut give this a hard edge on the end/aftertaste that seems to rob it of the rich, heary, sweet taste that 90 shillings possess. I suppose it’s not a 120 shilling but whatever the case, this one just seems a bit too lacking in malt depth and complexity. To be fair, draught carbonation does not work in its favor.