The Drafting Room 16th Anniversary Ale
On tap @ the brewery on 7/22/10. Served in a pint glass. Pours a crystal clear copper, with a finger of eggshell-white head. This retains with a thinnish, yet still smooth and creamy look, which sends of cascade of rich foam down the sides of the glass. The aroma has that big hoppy bouquet of the Nugget Nectar present, with flowery hops, pine, and some grapefruit juice poking through. The yeast is fairly noticable, adding some fruity earth, spice, and even a little bit of bubblegum to the nose. Some toasty bready sweetness hangs on the edges. Those hops offer up a fresh crisp bite of pine, bitter rind, and grapefruit, which is almost tempered somewhat by the estery flavors from the yeast. The more delicate fruit flavors work nicely with sticky notes of bread and caramel from the malts giving this a well balanced nature, while this finishes crisp, dry, and spicy with an equal lingering amount of bitter and sweet. The mouthfeel is medium bodied, with a prickly sharpness to the carbonation that sits on top of a more beefy slickness underneath. There is definitely some warmth to this, mingling with that dry estery feel in the finish. I wouldn't call this completely drinkable but it does a pretty good job. This was nice. The fresh hoppy awesomeness of Nugget Nectar punched up with the added flavors and sharpness of the Belgian yeast. Like I said, the combo of the yeast and thicker feel here kept the drinkibility of this down just a tad for me but I still really liked the innovation here.