Magnumus Ete Tomahawkus ESB³
I've had good luck with this brewery, and its "extreme" series of brews. Maybe I should take up bungee jumping, or half-pipe skateboarding... A - Now that's a head! Even a gentle pour from the bomber into a pint glass yields three fingers of frothy, meringue-looking foam. Color is a pale, light copper, just a bit cloudy. S - Can something smell mean? My nose is trying to negotiate a bouquet of freshly-mowed lawn, rotten clementines and furniture polish. Complex, in a multi-car accident sort of way. T - My first thought is kale - earthy, green and exceptionally bitter. A sharp astringency on the mid-palate (hello, 8% alcohol) dissipates into a hop-fueled grapefruity punch right in the kisser. The finish is a bit rocky; you sort of wait for the curve to level, but it doesn't - it just sort of fades away like a punk rock beat forever echoing across your palate. A non-hop lover friend put it well: "this must be what Pine-Sol tastes like." M - It's bitter, really bitter. In fact, it's almost hard to gauge the viscosity and mouthfeel due to the fact that your mouth is recovering from each sip. This is what I imagined when I first read the label for Stone Ruination; in fact, I hereby declare my palate SHOT. D - I absolutely could not drink more than one of these. High alcohol and EXTREME bitterness make drinking this beer a lot like eating a live guppy on a dare: You fake a smile, mutter "it wasn't that bad" and make secret mental notes about where your limits really lie. If you remember that part in "Tombstone" where Johnny Ringo yells "don't any of you have the guts to play for blood?" and Doc Holiday steps out and says "I'm your huckleberry - that's just my game," that moment is this beer personified. In all seriousness, this was the first of Rock Art's beers that lived up to the "I'd turn back if I was you" label. If you're a fan of shocking your palate, and indeed establishing just how much is too much from a beer, give this ESB3 a try. Much like the aforementioned bungee jump, it's something you are glad you did, but it's not like you're hurrying to get back in line and do it again.