Tonight's beer: Lagunitas Brown Shugga'
Starts out steeply bitter: pine and citrus and flowers, backed by grass and possibilities of musk; toasty-bready sweetness emerges around the middle, then ebbs gradually to a surprisingly dry finish. Threads of toffee, nuts vanilla chocolate.
Just a little thicker than medium-bodied, with a good amount of fine carbonation. Some soft bready chewiness evolves into a thick smear of resinous-syrupy stickiness. Slowly drying, eventually something like cleansing and refreshing. Basically no hint or warning of the 9.8% ABV.
Such a delicious beer, entirely its own thing but recognizably an amalgam of a handful of styles: American brown ale, IPA (mostly the newer American interpretations), barleywine (again, mainly American), and the sugar dumped into the ferment probably tilts things at least slightly Belgian-ish. Staggeringly intense, astonishingly complex; balance-ish and nicely integrated and scarily drinkable. I remain ambivalent about their business decisions, but Lagunitas can brew some awesome beer.
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| Lagunitas Brown Shugga' |
Starts out steeply bitter: pine and citrus and flowers, backed by grass and possibilities of musk; toasty-bready sweetness emerges around the middle, then ebbs gradually to a surprisingly dry finish. Threads of toffee, nuts vanilla chocolate.
Just a little thicker than medium-bodied, with a good amount of fine carbonation. Some soft bready chewiness evolves into a thick smear of resinous-syrupy stickiness. Slowly drying, eventually something like cleansing and refreshing. Basically no hint or warning of the 9.8% ABV.
Such a delicious beer, entirely its own thing but recognizably an amalgam of a handful of styles: American brown ale, IPA (mostly the newer American interpretations), barleywine (again, mainly American), and the sugar dumped into the ferment probably tilts things at least slightly Belgian-ish. Staggeringly intense, astonishingly complex; balance-ish and nicely integrated and scarily drinkable. I remain ambivalent about their business decisions, but Lagunitas can brew some awesome beer.
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