Ding Points: 60.00
Pour: 60.00, Nose: 60.00, Palate: 60.0, Mouth: 60.00, Global: 60.00
Tasting Notes:
$10.99 from Arbor Place Beverage for the 750 mL, (plastic, yuck!) corked, (crappily) caged bottle, that was next to impossible to open as the cheap, shitty cage wire just about disintegrated in my fingers, and fight with the hideous, plastic cork raged for several minutes, finally ending with my victory but not without the help of a lazy fish corkscrew – bullshit! From ‘The Atypical Series’.
Pour is an ordinary looking black body, with a very light head that leaves little or no lace and is not well retained. You can see from the pour alone that this beer is not especially bold, viscous or robust.
Thomas Creek Brewery LLC., Banana Split Chocolate Stout
The problem with calling a beer a ‘Banana Split Chocolate Stout’ and then raging about its richness on the label, is that a name like that will start to induce huge, bountiful, opulent richness in ones mind before one gets the beer into the glass. The decadence that the name conjurers up is likely to be a bit of let down if the beer does not come through in a very strong way, and that was exactly what happened here.
This beer is somewhat thin and light and is no more than a pleasant, easy drinking lightweight stout. No crime in THAT, but given what (I think) they were aiming for here, it’s just not good enough. There are no massive banana notes and (perhaps more disappointingly), no richness or creaminess in the mouth. Perhaps the fact that dried bananas are used rather than mushy, overripe fruit doesn’t help, but frankly the chocolate notes are largely missing too. Some light acidity lingers a while, and the beer whilst certainly very drinkable, never really leaves its mark. Malts pull the whole thing together OK, but the bottom line is that Thomas Creek oversold this.
Carbonation is light but appropriate for the style. Unfortunately ever mouthful leaves me wanting more than it can deliver, in terms of alcohol, bananas and depth of body.
This is a beer that I had hoped that i would need to share, with richness, depth, body and sweetness and fruit elements proving to be more than one could reasonably enjoy on ones own – somewhat unfortunately, that was not the case. A low impact beer, with a high impact name. Bleh.
Other: 7.5% ABV.
I’m sorry to read you had to wrestle with it just to get the beer open, but also glad, knowing I wasn’t the only one. The cage was twisted on so incredibly tight there wasn’t anything to really grab onto to release it. I used pliers.
I thought the beer was alright, myself, but agree the overwrought label was knowingly reaching well beyond the beer’s performance. Which seems the way things are going in the industry, especially with the one-off releases. Perhaps, with so many new competing breweries popping up, brewers are simply having to focus more on branding (or re-re-branding in the case of Red Brick), gimmicky names, and garish, flashy labels than the ultimate product inside the bottle (like Peaotch).