Southern Tier Iniquity

Brewed by Southern Tier Brewing Company
Style: American Strong Ale
Lakewood, New York USA

A beer that dramatically improves as it warms, "Iniquity" has flavors that don’t appear early in a tasting but come out later, almost as a cumulative effect. Nice hoppiness and a little alcohol warming effect is later complemented by subtle chocolate notes as it warms.

It’s black with a red hue and a huge, creamy head. The aroma has notes of fruity, citrussy hops and roasted malt and licorice. The flavor is slightly sweet with notes of roasted malt, licorice, light chocolate and fruit, mostly citrus. It’s really well made, interesting and harmonic.

On tap at Beer Temple, Amsterdam. Nice dark brown body with tan head. Nose of hops and malts, sweet and toffee. Nice sweet taste as well, with coffee and caramel in effect. More hoppy towards the finish. Well done.

On tap at Beer Temple. Deep dark brown to black colour, dense light beige head. Aroma of hops, pine, sweet malts, burnt sugar, fruits. Flavour is sweet, malty, light roasted malts, a bit of coffee, caramel, some dark fruits, good hoppy citrus bitterness in the finish. Medium bodied.

Bottle. Moderate to heavy malt aromas of toasted and molasses, heavy pine tar for the hops, light earth for the yeast, with background notes of licorice, raisin, vanilla and alcohol. Head is small, frothy, off-white with spotty lacing and is mostly diminishing. Color is dark cola brown. Flavor starts moderately sweet and lightly acidic, then finish is lightly sweet and slight acidic and bitter. Palate is medium, oily with a soft to lively carbonation, and a lightly dry finish. Dark, rich and bold this is an excellent American Strong Ale.

Bottle. Pours a black color with a longlasting off-white head. Has a fruity malty hoppy aroma. Fruity malty hoppy bitter grapefruit flavor. Has a fruity slightly sweetish malty hoppy bitter finish with hints of grapefruit in the aftertaste.

Deliciously inviting aroma of licorice and grapefruit peel, with a much larger portion of the former. Clear dark brown, almost black, thin tan lacing head. The flavor is the closest I have yet found to licorice beer. It finishes with a wisp of smoke and charcoal, but there is little complexity beyond that. It is licorice beer. I’m amazed that there are no additives; what a feat! Tasty and unique, but a bit of a novelty act. A little too sweet too. If I ever decide to learn to brew, though, I want to intern at ST.

THOUGHTS: Nice. I’ve had better, but still don’t think I’ve had a bad, dark IPA, yet. It was fairly mellow and easy to drink at first, but became overly dry in the finish was time moved on. Make sure to drink this one fairly warm, because the cold masks almost everything good about this one. TECHNICAL: Bottle. Poured an extremely dark red that looked nearly black in the glass with a small to average, off-white head that mostly diminished and left fair lacing. The aroma was moderate to heavy, caramel, chocolate and chocolate milk; moderate to heavy resinous hops and a little less piney hops; slight soy sauce, a bit rubbery, but I think that’s really the resinous hops. The initial flavor was lightly sweet, bitter and slightly acidic; while the finish was sweet, very bitter and slightly acidic with a long duration. There was caramel and roasted malt, a little chocolate, slight coffee, resinous hops, some pine and a little dark fruit. The full body was a bit syrupy and sticky on the lips and then a little dry with very fizzy carbonation and a metallic, very dry and lightly astringent finish.