Tasting Notes: Tiny Rebel: Yeastie Boys: Pomegranate and Molasses Belgian Strong Ale

Tiny Rebel: Yeastie Boys: Pomegranate and Molasses Belgian Strong Ale (Wales: Belgian Strong Ale: 8% ABV)

Visual: Dark ruddy red to caramel brown body. Inch of creamy browned head.

Nose: Turmeric and coriander. Earthy hops. Crushed peppercorns. Subtle caramel. Yeast funk. Heavy molasses notes. Brown bread.

Body: Chewy. Pomegranate. Mango. Tart apples to grapes. Dried banana. Slightly cloying mouthfeel. Sour-dough. Dry cinnamon.

Finish: Mango juice. Cherry pocked biscuits. Pomegranate. Muted cinnamon. Molasses. Sour cream.

Conclusion: This is a bloody weird beer. For one the pomegranate flavour is right up front and in your face. I always find pomegranate an unusual flavour in itself, but here it is layered over earthy spices, plus a hard to describe spice that I would best call “dry cinnamon”. It calls to spiced tea, just with beer instead of tea, if that makes any sense at all.

The feel is thick, with almost a savoury equivalent of cloying note, backed by sour dough and a grip that makes the flavours thick and clingy. I will say that the actual Belgian strong ale flavours feel lost under everything else. It ends up giving a texture, a funk feel, but not a flavour to match. That is all provided by the extra ingredients.

Early in it felt like it was trying to do too many things at once and felt unbalanced and mixed up. As time goes on it balances better but still feels too led by the special ingredients for me. I don’t mind pomegranate but with the thicker mouthfeel the flavour seemed to grip and hold on longer into the finish than I would like. It’s a flavour that I enjoy in the moment but gets wearing if it sticks around.

Lots of interesting elements in this one, but definitely more interesting than enjoyable for me. I love that the experimented, and like the idea, but it doesn’t quite work as a beer for me.

Background: Second to last of the seven collaboration beers made to celebrate the seventh anniversary of Tiny Rebel brewing. This is an odd one, as the name indicates it is made with pomegranate and molasses, to make what they describe as a Middle Eastern Belgian strong ale. Before drinking I had no idea what that would be like, but was intrigued. The collaboration box was grabbed from Independent Spirit. I put on Throwing Muses’ self titled album while drinking as I wanted some gentle but quality indie pop to relax with.

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Tasting Notes: Yeastie Boys: Cigar City: Brewing With Wayne

Yeastie Boys: Cigar City: Brewing With Wayne (New Zealand: Lichtenhainer : 4.5% ABV)

Visual: Cloudy lemon juice to apricot. Large white to off white head.

Nose: Bready. Sulphur. Slightly sour. Dried lemon. Peppercorn.

Body:Lemon. Smoked meat touch. Tart grapes. Wheaty. Salt touch. Juniper.

Finish: Salted lemon. Barbecue ribs touch. Lemongrass. Lemon juice. Salt. Slight sage. Juniper.

Conclusion: This is a pretty thick, sticky, weighty mouthfeel of a beer. Which is completely not what I expected from the moderate abv, less so did I expect that, despite the sticky weight, it is actually easy to drink. Oh what a world we live in that has such things in it.

What makes it work is that it is tart – with lemon notes,slightly salted, something that should, by themselves, make an easy going summer refresher; here they are matched with a smoke character that is akin to scraping a thin layer of the top of a rack of barbecued spare ribs and dropping it straight into the mix. Flavour wise it is a light note, but it makes the whole beer feel more mouth clinging, before expanding into subtle peppercorn and sage notes that make me think of a good steak dish.

So, lightly tart and sour, smoked gently with savoury herb notes. Quite the mix. If kind of feels like the less sour goses that I tried in Goslar – the wheat beer character is more evident than most of the sour wheat beers, and it seems to have extra ingredient flavours packed into every place they could, with juniper notes coming out later on.

It has a strange weight, but the tart flavours let it slip down easily. Sticky, yet never outstays its welcome. Not exactly a session beer – just a tad too high abv for that. It feels like a gose meets smoke meets herbs meets an attempt at a session … thing with wheat beer influence meets the reflection on the concept of Plato’s cave. Ok, I lied about that last one. Just making sure you are still paying attention.

A nice easy drinking, big flavour unusual beer.

Background: This caught my eye as it is a darn unusual one – a lichtenhainer – a style I have not tried before. Looking online it seems it is a traditional German style, similar to the gose, but made with some use of smoked malt. So, a sour, smoked wheat ale. Of course! This one seems unusual even for one that falls in this style – it is made with lemongrass,BBQ charred lemons and juniper, along with several different types of smoked malt. Oddly for a collaboration between a USA and an NZ brewery, it looks like it was actually brewed in England. Again, of course! This was another one grabbed from Independent Spirit and,feeling a bit old school, I put a variety of Madness tunes to listen to. One of the first bands I ever got into in my youth and I still have a soft spot for them.

Tasting Notes: Yeastie Boys: Rex Attitude

Yeastie Boys: Rex Attitude (New Zealand: Smoked Golden Ale: 7% ABV)

Visual: Light gold with a short lived rise of white bubbles.

Nose: Smoked ham. Peat. Erm, smoke. Very meaty. A friend noticed leather in it.

Body: Smoked ham again. Touch of iodine and salt. Barley. Chewable texture. Slight cheesy puff crisps.

Finish: Dry smoke and..kippers maybe? Brown sugar touch. Slight dry wood at the end. Hickory?

Conclusion: To re-appropriate a phrase from Mick Foley and apply it to beer. Most beers are like a circus variety act, lots of elements and if you don’t like one, say the acrobats, then you will like anther, say the animals. This then is the beer equivalent of watching a guy get shot out of a cannon 20 times. No variety, but a lot of shock.

It’s basically smoked meat and peat all the way. Slightly dry and medicinal at times, but yeah basically just peat air and chewable meaty body.

To be frank any golden ale character, or heck any hop character is lost before the peated malt influence. The texture is the main discernible “beer characteristic”. So not a complex beer then, but it is actually fun. I wonder if this is somewhat like what a non oak aged “Bitch Please” would taste like?

I’m actually enjoying my time with the beer. The weird texture makes me wonder if a touch unusual yeast isn’t being used, which gives it an extra dimension the hops can’t manage(And would be very appropriate given the brewers name)

Probably not a beer to have often as it is very single note, but it is a resoundingly fun rejection of your standard expectations of Golden Ale, or in fact just an ale in general.

Background: Part of the kind gift package of beer my sister brought back from New Zealand. This was one of her suggestions, a golden ale made entirely with peated malt. Intriguing. Plus it has a dinosaur on the front, which as anyone who read the recent q and a session I had knows means I am well inclined to it. Heavily peated malt tends to be a a mainstay of Islay whisky of which I am quite the fan.