Our Tastes- Grumpy Monk

Ole Jim at SA has really tapped into a neat niche for trying beers. Back when the only thing going for the company "trial-wise" was the Beer Lover's Choice Awards, along came the LongShot contest (your's truly made it to the quarter finals with RR and some great feedback but that's another story). Now he has the Small Batch series. Brews that they want to try in the open market but it seems to be more cost effective to put them in bombers, possibly due to label costs, etc. Well the only small batch beer that I have found not in it's own 22oz bomber is Grumpy Monk. It pours a fantastic marsh mellow head of off cream froth in my tulip glass. Aroma is subdued, not too much malt, yeast or hop. Slightly orange in color with a spank of red highlight. The taste is awesome and reminiscent of my Belgian IPA. The bitterness of the American hop comes forward after the mouth is cleared with little yeast residual; however, the linger of peach will definitely be noticed due to the yeast strain used. Made with Bohemian Pils Malt, and Honey Malt, then hopped with Simcoe, Fuggles, Saaz, Cascade, Amarillo, and Ahtanum, this beer is a keeper year round for me. This was a great educational beer, reminding me that the Belgian beers come from importance of yeast strain from monastery to monastery and the IPAs derive from hop character that started with the East India Company (yes, like in the Pirates of the Caribbean). 5.7%abv.