4X Quad - Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery

BuckeyeNation

Iowa

3.93/5  rDev 0%
look: 3.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 4

Tobacco brown with orange and amber highlights picked up from inside the brewpub. An extremely gentle pour resulted in a minimal amount of ecru foam that faded quickly, but remained as a thin line of suds around the upper edge. A dozen or so tiny dots was the extent of the lace.

The aroma was too subtle early, becoming *just* bold enough with warming. It featured medium-dark malt, medium-dark fruit and essentially no alcohol. Trappist ale yeast esters could have been more pronounced, which is part of the reason why the score was barely earned rather than rock-solid.

4X Quad came through on the taste buds, which is where it matters the most. The flavor profile was also 100% quadrupel, which is never a given in beer of this style. In addition to the four basic ingredients, caramelized cane sugar and Belgian candi sugar were used.

Specifics included brown bread and rye toast, dark caramel, spiced-earthy tobacco, dried cherries and a wee splash of brandy. Hop flavor and bitterness were neither appreciated nor missed, and double-digit alcohol was very... very... very... gently warming.

Mouthfeel was the only (minor) fly in the ointment. Its light-medium nature made for easy drinking, and the slippery-slick finish was appropriate, but there wasn't enough volumizing carbonation to result in any semblance of creaminess.

4X Quad might have earned higher scores across the board if it was bigger, richer, more malty and better bubbled. That said, it was still an enjoyable sipper on this unseasonably cold March afternoon. Iowans have every reason to be thankful that we can now drink something other than low- and medium-ABV brewpub beer.

Serving type: on-tap

03-08-2011 20:43:08 | More by BuckeyeNation