Two Brothers Avalon Spiced Ale

Brewed by Two Brothers Brewing Company
Style: Fruit Beer
Warrenville, Illinois USA

Bottle shared during a wind down after ABCF. Spiced compost in a glass. Imagine making a fruit salad, accidentally fumbling over your spicerack, & then leaving it on the counter for a couple days for your dog to clean up(but he avoids it). Disturbed sediment pour into a tulip glass. Muddled amber color, dusty white head. Smell is pleasant green apples & light amounts of stale ginger, pungent nutmeg & cinnamon sticks. I was initially eager to sink into this one. Taste is a total fuck up. Ooh, lets add way too much cinnamon to this cider, let’s really mess this shit up. Nutmeg is bitter & adds nothing but unpleasant soapiness. Allspice is way over board. A decent cider base, but it’s just flooded with pounds of dusty/sometimes stale & abused spices. It just becomes a dominate soapy & herbal mess halfway through the initial subtly sweet apples. Soda-like carbonation, & dry mouthfeel are fine, though it doesn’t matter, since the spices just run rampant. Just as bad as it was at Barcade months ago. Shame. Pricey too.

Bottle. Aroma is very sweet, citrus fruity, touch sour apple, and some rich spicy character. Clear orange amber color with a creamy off-white head that leaves splotchy lacing. Fairly sour, green apple, a bit bitter, very dry finish. Faint richness from the spice. Medium bodied, little lasting aftertaste.

Heavy carbonation right out of the bomber, spewing apple cider aroma and light spicing all over. Hugely active yeast. Sudsy-rocky beige head from the constant stream of carbonation on an amber-brown body. Dryish, low bitterness, spices overtake the apples in the mouth. Medium-full body, clean hard malt and lots of effervescence. Yup, just like a cider, perhaps with a bug in the bottle.

Draught at Oliver Twist, Stockholm. Clear nut brown, minimal head. Restrained cinnamon and apple aroma. Fruity sweet and sour flavour. Medium bodied with clean mouthfeel. Light caramel behind apple and spices. Low bitterness. Quite interesting flavour, but the hard, clean malt is not acting to it’s advantage.

(Draught at Oliver Twist, Stockholm) Dark amber colour with brief, off-white head. Fruity, spicy nose with notes of apples and dried fruit, slightly burned. Fruity, spicy taste with fried apples, dried fruit, rubber and a touch of brett? Not very bitter, medium body. Interesting, rather weird beer with a touch of calvados. More interesting than brilliant though.

I bought this because I found a bomber for tree-fiddy, but man, I probably wouldn’t even pay half that for this again - this is truly vile - like someone mixed equal parts shit-ass apple cider and shit-ass wheat beer - a bit of phenolic character, apple skins, dry spices (nutmeg, clove, cinnamon) - a really odd and off-putting herbal bitterness (yarrow or something) - sandalwood, dried flowers, reminiscent of sucking on specialty soaps from Bath and Body Works - I normally think this brewer doesn’t get enough love, but in this case, they really f-ed this one up - terrible - if it weren’t for the decent aroma, this would score much lower.

On tap @ Jerry’s. Copper color w/ a tiny beige head. Fairly one-dimensional aroma of apples w/ vague anise. Flavors of cider, cinnamon, some anise and vaguely spicy. Light body w/ acidity and a dry finish. Flavor suffers from sweet, boiled candy flavors. One positive: sweetness not overdone as in many ciders. Disappointing on the whole.

Intense appley cider-like aroma, along with some elements of perfume. The flavor starts out with a very strong apple cider taste, with some secondary cinnamon and clove spiciness, but ends on a very unappealing (accidental pun) potpourri note...I’m almost getting an abhorrent "old lady perfume" kind of vibe in the aftertaste and a weird scented dresser drawer kind of hint.