(View previous instalments here)
Another monthly box from AFBeerClub has arrived, and I’ve got to be honest with you, I’m not terribly excited about the contents. There are a lot of things in there that are very much not beer, and only two that I’d say I’m actively looking forward to trying. Hopefully it’s just a bad month, and next month will be better. Either way, I’m going to get the crap out of the way first, so expect low scores here, and hopefully higher scores in the next post.
Brulo Mango Guava IPA
The colour of this one definitely screams “mango”. It’s a thin and watery drink, apparently with some floating particulates. The mango is very much present both in the smell and the taste – not a subtle mangoification process here, not at all. It’s very sour, and I found it to be quite offputting. This is neither a good beer, nor a good mango drink.
Maltgarden Free Sunset Red
This is one of the most uninvitingly-coloured drinks I’ve ever seen. It looks like rust-discoloured creek water. The smell, however, is strangely good, a bit like rhubarb yoghurt. The taste is also not too unpleasant, it’s very sweet but with lots of summer fruit aspect to it. While it’s not a bad drink, it’s again not at all what I am hoping for in a self-proclaimed box of beers.
Kaiserdom Pink Grapefruit
Continuing to work our way through things that claim to be beer, this is basically Lilt. Don’t get me wrong, I quite like Lilt, but this blog post is titled “alcohol-free beers”, so if I review it as a beer:
Tempest Sleight Of Hand
Not sure what Tempest are playing at here, but they’ve released a stout with exactly the same name as their alcohol-free IPA, making it hard to differentiate. This is a spiced milk stout, and my initial concerns were that it would be a silly overflavoured Christmas cash-in. Thankfully, the spices in the smell are very subtle indeed – it does have a somewhat interesting medicinal aroma. In the flavour, again the spiciness is delicate, with just a little hint of weirdness, not an all-out war on your tastebuds. This is a tricky one to rate, and far far better than I was bracing myself for, but ultimately I can’t see myself purchasing this one again, which means that it must be:
