It's like this beer took some random words of the moleskin journal of some inner city share house dwelling hippy and threw them up in the air to create the concept for this beer.
I understand that Desert Stouts are all the rage at the moment, it usually means that it's a sweet stout, I liked them better when they were just called milk stouts. You see it's normally lactose that gives that sweet full body.
But lactose is unfermentable sugar from cows which means you see the comment 'Is it vegan?' on the insta post from each of the craft brewers in town as they launch their latest pastry stout.
Molly Rose, which is the brewery in this case is located in Collingwood, now I'm assuming I don't have to many Melbourne readers of these posts, but basically Collingwood is to Melbourne what Williamsburg is to Brooklyn, or maybe what Portland is to the US as a whole or Camden to London - basically it's wall to wall fixies, beards, craft breweries and plant based diets.
So if you are Molly Rose you probably need to make it Vegan - so they have - instead of lactose they are giving it body with Oats - how they will get the sweetness in is anyone's guess.
Then add Nitro - which is the Guinness like way of carbonating beer - it's pretty hot right now - and yeah on tap it works, it give a nice smooth carbonation, but in Cans not so much.
And finally Persian Coffee - Coffee in beer isn't that unusual - every brewery seems to throw coffee beans in the brew nowadays of course they even manage to name check one of Melbourne's many many hot right now coffee roasters on the can - and here's me thinking they were going to break out the Nescafe blend 43.
But enough of my cynical reflections on the culture of craft beer in Melbourne - which I love, I really do. It's time to taste the beer.
Now when you through all those words into the title of the beer you are setting some pretty beer expectations so this beer has a lot to live up to.
It pours a Dark black, slight nitro fall (you know what I mean if you've ever waited to a Guinness to settle) on the pouring but it's there for maybe a secoond.
What is left is a Big frothy tan head.
The Smell is not sweet but really quite strange, almost medicinal. It had me very confused I was expecting coffee, maybe chocolate tones, roasted malt maybe but this is weird. I consult the can again, look for the body copy description of the beer. What I can smell is cardamon.
So is this really a Cardamom, Rosewater and Coconut Nitro Persian Coffee Vegan desert stout?
The mouthfeel is really thin which is a shock, the oats are doing nothing, the lake of the lactose is evident.
The taste is dominated by cardamon which adds a spiciness which I wasn't expecting. As I drink through it I think I might be getting a little bit of a wet coffee taste, but it's slight.
So somehow the brewers have made a Persian Coffee Nitro Desert Stout which isn't sweet, has basically no nitro and doesn't taste like coffee - it's quite an achievement.
It's not to say this is a bad beer, and if it was called what it tastes like - a Cardamon brown ale then I might have liked it - I probably wouldn't have bought it in the first place becuase well what's exciting about that - I mean you are going to need all the hot right now words in your beer name and a great can design (which they do have by the way) if you are going to get me to buy your beer because I am nothing if not a beer wanker from Melbourne.
So much going on there. @mazzle you left just in time, mate. I've been making some real rough #prisonhooch from Woolies 2L juices, so always on the lookout for new ingredients, not much on that ingredient list tugging at my sleeve, though.
Solid review - 4 stars - Would read again.
I must say it looks nice in the glass, it is a pity that this !BEER was not living up to expectations!!
Cheers!!
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