Smuttynose Gravitation

Brewed by Smuttynose Brewing Company
Style: Abt/Quadrupel
Portsmouth, New Hampshire USA

In short: A extra-sweet dark fruit juice with bubble. This is no ABT.
How: Bottle (bomber). Consumed fresh soon after it came out. Maybe too fresh?
The look: Clear burgundy topped by a little beige ring of foam.
In long: Nose of sweet dark fruits juice. Taste of very sweet (sweetened) dark grapes, sweetened prune juice and olives (no kidding). A little toffee and caramel but mainly this is an extra-fruity beer with a too much residual sugars. Body is oily and sticky with a medium carbonation. Very very simple. An insult to the trappist standards. What a week brew. If you want to experience a weaker Gravitation you have jumping around on the moon.

Tallahassee, Fl. - Liquor Loft - 22 oz bomber. Dark brown pour, khaki, medium-sized head which dissipates fairly quickly. Aroma of sweet fruit salad, cherries, and sweet spices. Bountiful flavor with cherries, gumballs, candied sugar, hints of bubble gum, toffee, raisins, and some spearmint. Mouthfeel is thick and rich - excellent.

Bottle from Knightly. This pours a deep reddish-brown color, nice color, with a decent sized head and blotches of lacing. The aroma is caramel with some dark fruits following, dates, raisins, figs. Simple flavors, heavy on the brown sugar with dark fruits, particularly raisins. A slight spiciness to it but extremely easy to drink. Way too thin for a Quad and maybe even a little thin as a Belgian Strong. Abv is lower than any other Quad I can recall anyways. Regardless of style, this is an enjoyable beer, simple yeah but enough there and nothing out of place.

Bottle from Premier. Mahogany brown, thin tan head. Nose is raisin, rich malt, candied fruits, toffee, some yeasty pear. Flavor is sweet toffee, rich & bready malts, soft fruity peach yeast character. Toffee & a bit of tart cherry in the finish. Really great sweet yeast/light tart finish. Wonderfully light body, some almost burnt sugar.

(bottle from OSLO, thanks Al!) Pours deep red with an off-white head that quickly dissipates to nothing. Aroma is strong of cherry, caramel, walnut, light vanilla, and substantial raisins as well. I also get hints of alcohol, and another scent I normally smell in saisons that I can’t quite identify. Not sure if this is a spice or just a characteristic of the yeast. The flavor is very sweet upfront, with a lot of raisin, brown sugar, and caramel all over, but this quickly transitions to a dry yeasty and spicy finish. In-between this transition there’s this unique effect as both flavors are presented, which imparts a strawberry-like taste, and is rather tangy. The dry finish lingers quite nicely, and the mouthfeel is smooth and somewhat viscous. The alcohol that showed up in the aroma does not appear in the taste. This is a solid quad.

22oz bottle. Pours a deep mahogany with a quickly collapsing off white head that leaves a lasting foam. Nose is caramel and tons of raisins and candied cherries. Nice flavor but nothing special. Modest alcohol burn which is a little odd for a quad thats only 8.5%. Big caramel malt with a nice raisiny aftertaste. Lingering chocolate cherries. Very solid, Lacking the explosive yeast characteristics of the belgian quads.

Bottle thanks to bu11zeye. Ruby brown in color with an average off-white head. Aroma is of black cherry, caramel, and yeast. Taste is of raisin, sugar, malt, caramel, and maple.

Bomber via the sloth. Pours a lovely deep ruby brown but looks black in the glass. Thin initial fizzy head that settles to mere carbonation in minutes. Gentle nose of toffee and rasins. Sweet graininess hits the teeth and rounds into some lighter fruits and finishes with a sweet balanced and decent duration finish. The alcohol hit me pretty well by the end of th bomber and seemed closer to 10%. None too shabby. Thanks Bert!