Midnight Sun Cafe Amsterdam’s 10th Anniversary Gruit

Brewed by Midnight Sun Brewing Company
Style: Traditional Ale
Anchorage, Alaska USA

Bottle shared by JW77 and wow this is good stuff!! Brown pour, small head. Aroma is caramel, light chocolate, herbal notes and some funk. Flavor is MUCH more tart than I would have guessed. Damn this is good. Cannot even taste the alcohol. Just some spices, wood, sourness, earthy funk and pure deliciousness. Seek this one out for sure!!

Bottle shared at Logan’s pre-GABF party. Brown pour. Citrusy and sour aromas. Sour flavor. I really didn’t know what to make of this beer and it really deserves a better, more in-depth review than I am able to give it from the sample I tried. But it was truly remarkable.

bomber - thanks as usual to my BFF Frank; cracked at the HOTD dock sale; pours dark brown and slightly muddy with thin tan head; vegi, earthy, carrots, pepper and obvious tarty twang; 12% - are you kidding me? medium body with zesty mouthfeel; peppery zing with oranges, cinnamon and ginger; really good stuff and I need to get more

Crazy stuff this Gruit....very tangy aroma, sharp citrus/spice melds well with the malts on the palate. Some very interesting layers in the finish.

10th rating for this beer. Pours a really dark dark brown, almost black, with a tan head. The aroma is of malt, chocolate, and earthy spices. The taste is surprisingly sour, complex with spice and has a sweet finish. This is really smooth, creamy, full bodied beer with a lively carbonation. The alcohol is well hidden in the nose and taste, but has a slight warming on the finish. A really good drinker. Thank you Café Amsterdam and MSBC for this great traditional brew.

Bomber thanks to Juice. Pours dark and fizzy. Smells a little like cola. Hints of plum and raisin. Hints of dirt, wet dog, and general moist earthy filthiness that I find surprisingly nice in this context. The flavor is very tart like a sour black cherry cola. Sort of. I guess I’d say that. I like it.

Draft at Cafe Amsterdam. Wow, what an artful beer. It’s awesome that Midnight Sun collaborated with Anchorage’s best publican to create this unique beer ... you don’t see gruit every day. And I couldn’t drink a lot of this either. It’s definitely an acquired taste, in some ways related to Belgian sours maybe, drinking with a puckeringly tart character, but also exceptionally sweet. Spicy and floral, like tip-toeing thru the daisies, herbal, mountain-y. Artwork in a glass. (#3564, 6/24/2009)

Appearance: Pours a dark brown, near black body with a finger-high layer of foamy, beige-hued head. Smell: Lightly sweet-smelling dark malts positively littered with savory notes of spice and herbs. Gruits smell the way I would imagine a witch or wizard’s house might, with all those colorful trails of magic-imbued smoke and rune-etched stone apothecary-style jars containing everything from Dragon Scales to Bugbear Hair to Eye of Newt. Taste: Sweetish, darkened malts upfront, though I usually am bad about making little mention of the malts in a gruit as I’m far, far too busy trying to pick apart all the other zany, twangy, fantastical flavors. Raw, leafy herbs tossed with Dr. Pepper and a pinch of meat seasoning. Peeled and discarded plum skins and a spoonful of Hot & Sour soup with some slight camphor tones. Continued peppery spiciness from start to finish. Drying, savory finish with one final sip of Dr. Pepper. Mouthfeel: Medium-plus body. Medium-high carbonation. Drinkability: Fairly decent! Gruits always make for a fun ride. I’ve had some good ones, I’ve had some not-so-good ones, and the reviews always end up looking like flavor-based refrigerator magnet poetry.