Ding Points: 88.50

Pour: 80.00, Nose: 90.00, Palate: 90.00, Mouth: 90.00, Global: 90.00

Tasting Notes:

More beer in the Lips of Faith Series. This one brewed in association with Elysian, it’s a blended beer.

Relatively low carbonation on the initial pour, but the beer still has plenty of life in the glass. Mid-orange pour with smallish head, low retention and a little lace. Some spotty surface lace remains. Under NO circumstances is this ‘ruby-hued’ as the bottle suggests, that’s simply misleading. Do they know what color a ruby, is???? It appears not!

New Belgium, Kick

If one wanted to summarize this beer quickly, I’d call it a fruity, smooth, over-carbonated sweet cider; (cider as in ‘English, scrumpy cider).

The nose is quite strong and has plenty of sweet apples with a gentle funk note. The tastes produce a very fruity beer, a tiny bit of funk and a lovely tartness in the finish which lingers and leaves a lovely aftertaste. A very nice combination of sweet fruit upfront and a gentle tartness in the back end. Obviously this is not supposed to be a sour beer, but it is a refreshing, sharp(ish) fruit beer that manifests itself in a manner that one does not necessarily associate with a fruit based brew. Apples keep coming to mind, and hence the cider references. I don’t really get specific notes related to cranberries or pumpkins or indeed spice, but the general fruit character is very apparent. Not much significant wood character either, although the distant aftertaste does give a touch of that characteristic dryness that one might associate with such elements.

Like many ciders, the alcohol is not especially apparent, but it could creep up on you.

Very tasty, very moreish, really good, but this isn’t a sour, isn’t a pumpkin beer and isn’t ‘ruby-hued’, so if you can get past those (largely untrue) monikers and you are seeking a very fruity, slightly tart beer, English cider (scrumpy) clone,  then you will probably be delighted.

Other: 8.5%