A few years ago, I received a gift from my sister in law of a map of Pennsylvania that holds bottle caps. As I am living in Tennessee, bottles of beer from Pennsylvania are fairly rare to me. Hell, bottle caps for breweries from Tennessee are hard to come by. It seems that everyone has moved to cans now that the metallic taste no longer leaches into the beer. As a result of having this map, and not being able to fill it with caps, I have received a few Pennsylvania beers in bottles. I believe these were mostly randomly picked entirely for their place of origin, but this quadruple ale seems like it would be the exact kind of beer I would pick up anyway.
First sip is a strange mix of bite and smoothness. The almost booze-like nature of the beer asserts itself suddenly, but it tapers off just as quickly to allow a general smoothness to settle in while caramel and toffee acquaint themselves with the dark fruits. As a sip, it's curious, but good. I suspect multiple sips would endear this to me quite a bit.
Tip-in is sweet caramel malt with yeast highlights and plums. The middle cranks up the carbonation at the roof of the mouth while the liquid becomes syrupy with toffee and raisins joining a thick mixture pouring down the back of the throat. The finish is a spark of dryness as the alcohol allows itself to be more well known and the yeast grapples for the trail off.
Bottom Line: An enjoyable beer the can probably stand up to whatever food you have with it.
3.75/5
