This has been chilling in my refrigerator for about a year. With the US failing at containing covid quarantine is dragging on. So I figured it was time to clean out these forgotten beers.
I’ve reviewed this beer before, but adding some time has mellowed out the alcohol and brought out more maple flavor. The appearance is pretty unchanged. It’s a nice amber red with a slightly haziness.
The aroma is like a pancake breakfast. It’s heavy on the maple and malt. This gives a rustic pancake almost griddle like aroma. There’s a bunch of vanilla and a bit of booze that lingers in the air.
The flavor is the best part. It’s maple and vanilla forward. The middle is malt worth bread like characteristics. The finish is slightly boozy with bourbon and oak undertones.
For a heavy beer style it feels light. There’s a mild amount carbonation and it’s pretty thin, but in a good way. I crushed this beer in the 90 degree heat. I’d never pick this style during the summer, but tough times are making me do crazy things.
I am not sure how I would be able to handle maple tones. When I was a kid we went camping out in New England and we ate so much of the maple candy in Vermont and that area that I kind of got sick of it. I need to revisit it at some point.
It’s funny how that can happen. I can’t eat tuna from a can because that’s all I at for a two week hiking trip when I was a kid.