Smashing Berry Ale
WOW... I mean, wow.... W.T.F. I just bought this a month ago from the brewery directly (actually my friend bought it for his non-beer-drinking wife). These are my notes: "Tastes like cheap cough syrup and old stale Brett. Reminiscent of those old-grandma strawberry candies (with the red and green strawberry colored wrapper) except not sweet at all. A light ginger color." I seriously could not believe that this was the creation of Hoppin' Frog. I also couldn't comprehend that they actually were selling this AT THE BREWERY. Have some pride. Have some respect for your customer. A world-class chef wouldn't send out inedible food to a patron; I would think that a world-class brewery would operate on the same premise. This was so off-putting I was gagging after the first sip. Smelled bad, looked bad, tasted bad... awful. I was previously annoyed that HF didn't put some sort of bottling date or freshness date on their beers, now I'm outright pissed. Who knows how old this is... The "berry" flavor was clearly not from real fruit, had to be some sort of extract. Can't believe it came to a HF beer, but to date, this now has the title of my lowest rating ever. Damn. Guess I can at least see why it was retired (wish I'd known before I let a friend spend good money on this though). If you come across this, don't... just don't... morbid curiosity isn't enough to warrant the waste of money this beer turned out to be. Yack.