Origin: USA
Type: Quadrupel
Color: Black
Alcohol content: 10.9%
Recommended serving temperature: 14ºC/57ºF
I've been trying to avoid bad mouthing beers lately. For many reasons. One would be I'm not that much of a better brewer that I can allow myself to criticize others. The fact that new breweries deserve some slack and a chance to get their shit together before we slaughter them, would be another. However, probably the most decisive reason is, with a wedding coming up I just don't have the money to afford picking up shit I never heard of and seeing what happens.
Nevertheless, today I felt I needed to make an exception.
I picked up a bottle of Brooklyn Brewery's Quintaceratops a few days ago. The description sounded incredible: Belgian-style quadrupel brewed with dark candi syrup, aged in rum and bourbon barrels. I was therefore happy to favor it over a bunch of beers I had tried and knew were excellent and spend a little over $20 on it. As it turns out, I was utterly stupid in doing so.
Apparently it's a result of aging Brooklyn's quad, the Quadraceratops, in Trinidadian rum and Kentucky bourbon barrels. Now, I haven't tried the Quadraceratops, the Trinidadian rum or the Kentucky bourbon in question (or the oak barrels for that matter), so I can't tell you how each of them is individually, but together... Let me put it this way, you know how god punishes you if you shack up with your sibling by giving your kids a pig tail and a sub par intelligence? You each can be wonderful people on your own, but if you get together and bump uglies, the result will be daunting. This is exactly what happened. At least I'm gonna be nice and hypothesize that that's what happened, because it can also just be that all or some of the ingredients were just total crap... that would not surprise me either.
But let me describe the beer.
It's black and has an off white head that dissipates fast. Seems fine.
Then you smell it. Solvent, really cheap rum (I don't know if you've tried the €4 rum they sell at Dia supermarkets, but I'm sure you get the idea) and something else I couldn't really put my finger on... until I read somebody on RateBeer (Nimbleprop, thank you for le mot juste) say it smelled like crayons. Yes, solvent, €4 rum and crayons.
Obviously, with that smell never take a big swig at it. It'll burn your throat if you do too, but it'll mainly give you a mouthful of the same cheap rum, solvent and crayon wax, with a mix of vanilla and coconut getting drowned into those tastes. In case you can't quite picture that mix, let me congratulate you first and then give you a quick image: Have you ever gone out drinking and had Martini Bianco, Malibu, Rum and some form of malt liquor? Do you remember the taste in your mouth the morning after? Well that's about as close a description as you can get, unless you were lucky enough to go too far the night you went drinking and puked before going to bed. Then you'd get the aftertaste.
The funny thing is (if you can find something funny about this beer after paying $20 for it), it actually slightly improves as it warms up. Who woulda thunk it with that flavor profile. But then again, itt might also have something to do with the fact that, after a couple glasses of warm booze you're well past the point of caring. I now for a fact that that's the underlying reasoning behind mold wine.
Now people might argue that the beer is just green and it'll soften out with time. Well that may be, after all it's a Q2 2015 edition. However, it seems to me that beers improve with age, as in they're already good when you buy them, they're not released before they can be drunk without considering a drain pour.
That's right, I considered a drain pour. But then I also considered the price. That's when I felt so ripped off by a mature and established brewery that's made some sort of a name for itself that I decided to write this post. After all, I've brewed myself a quad before and added wood chips that had been soaked in decent rum. I know how it tastes a week after bottling, a month after bottling and every other step of the way until it becomes drinkable. I really can't believe the people at Brooklyn Brewery didn't, especially considering they're making a living out of it.
Then again, they're making a living off of it and I'm not. What does that say about my marketing skills?
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