750 mL corked & caged affair with January 2009 on the label. Approx. $18 from Green’s on Ponce, Atlanta, GA, USA.
Missed this when it was on draft at The Brick Store in Decatur so this will have to do! It’s a hard life! ;-)
Pour is a butterscotch body on top of an impressive (if somewhat light), frothy head. Lace is OK, but not great. Large amount of sediment in the bottom of the bottle, but it does not produce a huge amount of cloudiness – odd.
Nice funk in the nose and the beer is impressively smooth and drinkable. Like all high quality beers of this nature it reminds me very much of a real, English, south-western (Somerset/Devon) cider, and my youth. Tasty, refreshing and moreish, the beer cuts across the palate gently as it warms. Light lemon, lingering tartness and a nice, gentle, maure farmyard/horse blanket finish.
Very impressed, delightfully tasty and a joy to drink BUT at the price I NEED all of those attributes. Those are non-negoitables!
Tasty, but an expensive beer to be honest, and beers that cost a fraction of the price do the job nearly (or just) as well. I still have great respect for this, and I think it is an astonishingly good beer, but the price tag takes the edge off for me a touch. It’s strange because this is really a market force issue – I actually think that it IS worth the price, BUT Allagash has a problem since there are several other beers that deliver a similar experience at lower cost.