$7.99 form Green’s on Buford, Atlanta, GA, USA. 22oz bomber.
Pour is impressive with a high, towering tan head and nice ruby red, highlighted black/brown body. Lace is fantastic; sticky, copious and thick. So far so good.
Bags of great malts in the nose that a coupled with a sweet, cereal (oat-like) note. Reminds me of an oatmeal stout.
Mouthfeel is also very nice with smooth, fine carbonation rolling easily across the tongue. Creamy nature. Again, almost stout like.
Sweet, nutty start but then BANG the rye and hop bitterness crashes in, in a non-too subtle manner. It renders the beer intensely bitter in the finish and aftertaste in a way that one was not expecting up to that point. It REALLY bites hard – too hard for me. It gives an unpleasant burned note and it badly unbalances the brew.
The vicious bitterness at the back end of this beer destroys the drinkability for me, and it makes the beer almost completely different in the two halves of the drink. Odd.