Tin. Clear body with white head. Light fruit aroma. Light bodied, malt and some fruit from the hops

Can

Opaque pale blond colour with massive fluffy head. Aroma has soft tropical fruit notes. Lots of peach and mandarin. A little leafy bitter hop in the background to add just enough bitterness.

Belcher at Shelter pours a translucent lemony yellow with some lacey white head. Nose has tropicals and citrus, some melon and perfume. Flavor has grist and flowers and citrus and tropicals. Balanced and lightly bitter. Well made.

Can, date obscured, some time in 2023, from the cooler, drunk 2/28/24. Dark cola with bright magenta-garnet highlights and a large, well-retained, burnt beige head. Lots of cola, hazelnut, light roast, light toast. Maybe a bit lacking on the base malt character. Light minerality, light licorice, light ash. Little/no hop character. Clean. A bit heavy-handed on the dark malt, with big licorice, cocoa, roast and toast. It's very clean, but yeah, very lacking in malt depth/base malt character. Pretty close to being done with Resident Culture. Even Schilling couldn't save them here.

weird beer. First thought was on no, this is a disaster, a big mistake but then I thought oh maybe not, maybe they just narrowly avoided disaster and then I thought oh maybe this is actually genius but then I realized how stoned I was, and settled for the middle ground more or less. So first up, this is super sweet and super sour. Its a big ball of sweet and sour. But the sour dominates, and its a big fruity sourness, an indistinct melange of all the listed fruits. Quickly just a slight hint at coconut pops up to provide a contrast, no more. As you swallow and linger in the acidity, with puckered lips and squinky eyes, you realize you need to wait a bit before a next sip, and your face spasms a bit more. Eventually you realize there is just the lightest touch of nutmeg lingering in that aftertaste. Often you get over-spiced bombs when nutmeg comes up, but here its used akin to how I use ginger in blueberry/blackberry hot sauce - just a mild hint of a spice counterpoint to all the heavy fruit flavors. In this case you just have to wait on that acid and sugar to fade out before you can really get it. The soursweet kick in the face? That lasts to the very last drop.

Illegibly-dated can, canned sometime in 2023, but from the cooler, and drunk 2/24/24. Sparkling, clear, brass-golden with a medium-sized, frothy, white head showing moderate-to-strong retention. Seems like some good phenol/ester but it's complicated by the sumac and of course the Motueka lends a big, round, lightly tropical fruitiness. Maybe a bit of melon, but it's really hard to get at the yeast. Malts seem to add biscuit, white bread, light honey. Clean. No crude phenols that I can find. Spicy up front with white pepper from the yeast and a malty, moderately-sweet texture with spicy sumac adding a touch of light astringency. Some juicy and light tropical fruit, again, from the Motueka. The carbonation is very heavy, peppery. The sumac adds a lot of unwelcome (IMO) acidity on the end and the Motueka really dominates. Kind of a mess of flavors and I'm left wondering what the hell I'm drinking. I don't love the sumac expression, being quite acidic/astringent and without any round or bright flavor. Lingering bread, vanilla, random spice, white pepper. Good enough malt texture helps things a lot, but it's still a bit baffling overall. Maybe needs another six months or so of age to come together.