On tap at the brewpub. Pours a slightly hazy color of orangish gold, topped with a layer of tight bubbled white head. Looks like an APA. Smells like used, stale coffee grounds. The coffee aroma isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but is very one-dimensional and masks all other aspects of the nose. I can’t smell malt caramelization, I can’t smell hops; coffee grounds. But it definitely looks like an APA. Not a bad thing, but it just feels strange. Light bodied, crisply carbonated mouthfeel. This has a decent mid-malt mouthfeel, showing adequate dryness and "refreshing" qualities, but the coffee characters dominate. The coffee itself overwhelms the palate, and has a bit of an over-roasted, astringent character. I’m told by patrons that the past batch was better; that’s good because this has potential to be a very intriguing beer. I wish I could comment on the malt or hop subtleties that back the coffee base, but my palate isn’t detecting any of those things tonight. There is, however, a subtle layer of blue cheese funkiness to the flavor that hides meekly behind the coffee, reminding me un-fondly of a distinctive small-scale homebrewing-coffee experiment gone very badly. Only this has not reached the very bad stage yet, or possibly it never will. Nonetheless, the flavor suggestion is enough to disappoint. Enough for now; this place has a great atmosphere, cheap prices, and is rightfully a popular local hangout. Now chug-a-lug.

Even orange caramel pour, with foamy fringe of whitish. Light aroma of Sanka and church-coffee grounds that have been rotting in a scented trash bag for three days in April. Flavor begins with a confused conflict between grain, unfermented wort sugars and a weak cup of coffee. A light caramel light pours through. It actually doesn’t taste terrible. After the initial awkwardness, the flavors settle out into a mellow dry combination of coffee oaks and light chocolate dust. A bit of yeast sugars climbs through the coffee grounds in the middle. Carbonation seems a bit coarse and abrasive, possibly pulling away some of the more delicate malt or coffee notes, in a Pop-rocks-like action. It is interesting to have coffee flavor that isn’t in a dark beer. Maybe this is really good and I’m just not sure. I’d like to see more agreement between the malt and the coffee. The fact that the malt character that is present isn’t all that desirable hurts, but the coffee flavor is nice and gentle, instead of rough and destructive, which is rare. Towards the end a Goldingsesque hop character alights on the tongue after the coffee parches away and you’re left with a real clean minty dryness that helps achieve even more balance and delight. For me though, in the end, mediocrity settles the dilemma, however this is one of the more entertaining, creative and intriguing beers they pour. Unique and somewhat exciting, it has good highs and bad lows, which means that if they refined this a little more and smoothed the rough edges they could have a real winner, in my book.