Franklins Batch # 300

Growler from artusory, consumed 7-29-07. Wow looks like I am in the minority on this one. Dark amber, tan head, still very carbonated after roughly 10 days. Huge sticky pine sap/resin up front in aroma. All kinds of tropical fruit esters. Mango/apricot dominate with plenty of bitter grapefruit zest. Flavor has a huge candied fruit character from the start. Grapefruit, apricot, carmelized malt, resinous pine. Big sticky mouthfeel. Very over the top, but well done IMO. Maybe tim ein the growler somehow improved this, or beer tastes better with sand between your toes and some salmon fishing on the horizon, I don’t know? Side note: "Bitter and offensive" was the qoute a non-beergeek friend used to describe this, lol....

Amber/orange body with a small beige head. The aroma is sweet caramels and cotton candy with buckets of citrus hops. The flavor is moderately sweet, quite bitter with caramel, toffee, honey, grapefruit and resinous pine. Full body is sticky and slightly astringent with a palate destroyingly bitter finish.

Draft, Franklin’s. Pours a murky, orangish brown color; off-white head with decent lacing. Vegetal aroma, showing citrus and a slightly sour / earthy note. Medium-to-full mouthfeel: very strange mix of flavors in this one; very vegetal, for starters (celery, stalky greenness); decent lingering hops, but seems kind of dissipated at this point, leaving only a sticky and mildly astringent presence in the mouth; there’s also some dry cedar in there as well: woody, earthy, and odd. A messy, messy beer that I couldn’t finish.

Draft. Pours a copper orange, with a slight haze and an off white head. Subtle fruity and piney hop aroma. Flavor reminds me of one of the Choas ales. It has flavors of grapefruit and citrus skin with a bold bitterness. Finishes semi dry with flavors of grape skins and peanut shells. Interesting beer, but I don’t see myself ordering another. Something was very odd about the combination of flavors.

7/7/07 Quite a bit like their Double IPA offering. Deeper red color with a frothy, foamy white head. Smells of pine and grapefruit, wicked hop aroma. Flavor was all of that. Pine, citrus, soap. Finish was far too astringent for me. Needs more balance to be worth of celebration. 7/20/07 Had this beer a second time when it was being served on cask and dry hopped. Flavor and finish were far more mellow. Dry hopping didn’t increase the bitterness, it actually mellowed all of the astringent hoppiness out. Maybe 2 weeks of setting helped this beer. Either way, I rated this much higher the second time around.