The Bar Towel

I was fortunate to have this on tap fresh at the brewery and get a growler filled to come home with.

I must say I can understand the "disappointment" of ale drinkers who sampled this and rated it as an APA or who were expecting NW cascade alpha bursts.

It's something beyond an APA or a strong brown ale or a dark ESB...it really defies catagorization...but it IS good and really drinkable. I wished they bottled it for an extended sale period, I'd certainly buy more.

My reason is that this is an "ale?" which you can really chew through the malts...deep malt complexity there and a lot of great toasty-cocoa-dried fruit notes from a long cold lagering....this ale is as close to tasting like a dark bock as you can get! Hell, the color looks like a bock or marzen ...a rich dark copper-orange with ruby highlights and a thick tan color cap.

Attenuated hop mixture comes in at the finish and combines with the black malt burnt husk astringency to give a light porter-like bittering to the very end.

All in all a pretty good experiment from Grate Lakes.

you raise an excellent point in encouraging experimentation

well. I say it was a successful experiment because it was the Bockiest tasting ale I ever tasted...and I like bocks so go figger my objectivity