Trafalgar Critical Mass

Brewed by Trafalgar Brewing
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
Oakville, Canada

This beer is completely terrible. Taste of pure alcohol mixed with tons of honey. Please stop making this "beer"!!

Gold, no head. Aroma is honey, apple juice, white vinegar, light caramel, alcohol. Taste is light honey, alcohol, caramel, light bitterness. Seems like a cyser.

200 ml bottle from Garthicus. Nose is apple juice, alcohol, and honey; sure smells like a mead. Clear gold with that shineyness that makes it look like a mead. Flavor is sweet honeycomb without any bitterness and alcohol; sure tastes like a mead. Finish is light alcohol and sweetness. Body is slightly syrupy like a mead. Doesn’t taste anywhere close to any IPA or DIPA and I’ve had almost 300. Not bad if it’s a 14% mead, horrible if it’s a 14% DIPA. I will take kp’s lead and rate it as a mislabeled mead.

200mL bottle from the horrid X-Mas giftpack. Pours a pale gold with zero head. The aroma is THAT SAME GODDAMN SYNTHETIC INKY BOOZE that I absolutely hate passionately. It’s a lot like bean sprouts, or even better, rotting bean sprouts. But this time it has some sort of wretched, rancid rank addition to it which I can only assume is badly mutillated hops. Flavour is again so f***ing cloyingly sweet I don’t even think ants would want it, and so horrifyinly awful and undrinkable I have almost lost all the respect I have for this brewery for the better-than-usual stuff they’be put out lately. No malts, just sugar. No hops, just rancid crap. Was this all some sinister joke? "Critical Mess" as it has previously been dubbed is a much more accurate name. There was so much disgusting sweetness in this beer and the other two from the pack, there might have been more flavours in them but I was too busy gagging on the floor as if a chlorine gas cannister exploded near by to really notice.

Date: March 27, 2009
Mode: Bottle
Source: Tasting
Words: rated as a mislabeled mead
Appearance: clear dark yellow, scant head, thick legs
Aroma: sweet honeyed malt aroma, light earthyness
Flavor: sweet honey flavor, light earthyness adds balance
Aroma: 6/10; Appearance: 7/10; Flavor: 6/10; Palate: 7/10; Overall: 13/20
Rating: 3.3/5.0
Drinkability: 8/10
Score: **+/4

Pours a transparent mostly still transparent pale golden. Aroma of sweet sugary honey and green apples. Starts with a lot of sweetness and candied honey character with some berry hints and a touch of floral character before a warming finish. I really think this is a mead and not a double IPA and am rating it as such.

Bottled sample. Brownish in colour with moderate carbonation. Aromas of sweet malts, sherry, and a bit of over-ripe tangerine. Lots of heavy malt in the mouth, along with more oxidized notes, stewed fruit, and a bit of brown sugar. Somewhat boozy. Seems more like a barleywine to me. Fairly heavy in the mouth. A bit crude, but not too bad.

Bottle. First off, the packaging on the gift pack does not reveal the cheap, transparent bottles these come in; combine that with the ’very strong beer’ label in very large lettering, and you have to wonder about the motivation behind this beer. This has to be the least ’craft’ oriented IIPA I’ve ever come across. Poured this into a snifter, it is very light yellow, almost urine-like with no head and very little carbonation. Pouring this, it sounded like pouring Canada Dry ginger ale, the same sort ’Coke commercial’ quick fizzy bottle top and pouring sound. It really smells like alcohol, with some pungent pine needles thrown in. Abrasive. It tastes very sweet on the tongue, like sugar water with heavy alcohol, some butter and sweet lemon. Syrupy.