On Saturday night, we ended up near a pub in San Marcos called Churchill's and decided to go check it out. Their tap list turned out to be huge and they had a beer that I have been wanting to try for a while- Monstre Rouge. This beer is a collaboration between Belgium's famed De Proef Brewery and Georgia's Terrapin Beer Company and done in the style of a Flanders Red Ale, a style I have absolutely no experience with. To tell the truth, the name was enough to get me on this one. It's just a great name.
Monstre Rouge pours a dark brown color with a nice reddish hue. It had an impressive creamy head that reminded me a lot of a Guinness from Ireland (not the crap we get here). The smell was dominated by some nice caramel malts, some citrusy hops and a little bit of bourbon. On a side note, a big thanks to Mike Campbell for helping me with the smells of this one. I had a bit of a cold going so my sense of smell wasn't fantastic that night. Thanks, Mike.
The taste has a lot of that malt sweetness upfront along with a bit of bourbon, some milk chocolate, red delicious apples and some soy sauce. It was a bit of a strange combination all at once, but it worked well enough. The finish strayed from the sweeter tastes that the beer showed at first and turned straight bitter. Lots of citrus hops came out of nowhere and formed a prolonged acrid finish. Overall, this beer was good and I'm glad I got to try it. Still, the finish was a bit too one dimensional for a beer that started off so complex.
Final Grade: B
No comments:
Post a Comment