CB's Oak-Aged Caged Alpha Monkey - CB's Brewing Company

TheBrewo

Michigan

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

This beer was served on tap at Tap and Mallet in Rochester, NY. It arrived in a Founders Stout Season pint glass, glowing a golden copper coloring. It held a one and a half finger tall head of tan cream, showing great retention. Thick lacing was left dripping down the glass in waves. No haze or sediment was noted, as the beer had solid clarity. Carbonation appeared moderate. The aroma gave sweet, fruity, nectary, and citric hop varietals to sit against coppery malts, light caramels, and bittered pales. Cooling vanilla, faint clovey spice, marshmallow sweetness, and faint oakiness all worked in with warmth. Our first impression was that there was nice oaky strength to the flavoring, adding more soured bite to the bittering finish of hops. As we sipped, pale malts, light wheat, coin, and a more bittered citric hop and rind started things off. The swallow came to a peak with warming oakiness and woody musk, light yeasty funk, more pale malts, and more big coininess. The finish came with sweaty dogness, toffee sweetness and saltiness, lightly toasted pale malts, vanilla coolness, metallics, and burnt popcorn around the edges. The aftertaste breathed of sweaty saltiness, citric hops, tangerine flesh sweetness, coin, faint oaky chalkiness, dried grassiness, and light hints of vanilla extract. The body was medium, and the carbonation was high, with lesser prickle, but huge foam on the swirl around the mouth. Each sip gave nice, slurp, cream, and froth, with an eventual astringent dryness to the palate, and coolness around the mouth. The abv was appropriate, and the beer was easy drinking and crisp.

Overall, what we enjoyed most about this beer was the flavoring. The oak is subtle at first, adding depth and additional bittering to the nice base that is Caged Alpha Monkey. The wood gave light sourness, but also added a degree of warmth to the flavoring, mixing nicely with the alcohol and the bittered aspects of the hops. The malts did cheapen up a bit, with huge coininess at times, but this beer definitely works.

Serving type: on-tap

01-26-2013 01:06:39 | More by TheBrewo