The caramel colored beer has the beginnings of a head coming right out of the can, but the head isn't long for this world. The profile of a post autumn tree is sketched out in bubbles across the top, and the round frame is a ring of bubbles clinging to the sides of the glass. The aroma is more malt than I expected, and it has the maple just kind of buried underneath a caramel malt.First sip is a bit more abrasive than anticipated from the nose. The beginning definitely seemed more gentle than the end, but a sip is all in one big crush, so I basically just get an impression of the beer. That's just the nature of a sip, isn't it? Mind you, there plenty of beers that I would gladly sip for extended periods of time, but this is pretty clearly not one of them. Instead, I'm going to gulp.
Tip-in is mild carbonation burn that is made a bit more severe by the strangely aggressive malt and the unsweet maple. The middle gets much better as the malt turns from earth to caramel and the maple regains the sweetness that it needed the whole time. The finish is a wash of dry that cascades across the mouth before slight bitterness lends itself to the trail off.
Bottom Line: Sometimes departures from the norm don't work as well as you hope.
1.75/5
