22 oz bottle from Hop City, Atlanta, GA, USA.
This is now a serious pattern rather than a few blips in the Big Beer series from Heavy Seas/Clipper. This is just not a very good beer – ANOTHER poor effort in the series.
Pour is fine with the standard black body and a decent amount of early carbonation. Head fades quickly; no lace or retention to speak of.
Nose gives virtually no smoke element which in itself is not an encouraging thing, but when the beer warms and there is only a tiny change and still no significant smoke it goes from disappointing to not good.
The beer offers virtually no smoke in the taste and there is a persistent acidity that I don’t care for. A strange dry character afflicts the finish and the aftertaste is chalky and bitter. None of the cream notes that I would like to enjoy.
Drinkability is very low and the second half of the bottle goes down the drain. Poor beer IMO and the worrying thing is now that I’ve seen this in a whole succession of this series. They appear to be coming out at alarming rate with not much regard for the quality. Bleh.