Beer - #431 - Garage Project - Beer

It's called simply "Beer". In a can.

Brewed by Garage Project this one in the style that is Pale Lager and they are in Wellington, New Zealand

330ml can, 4.8% ABV and 1.25 standard drink units in NZ. around 140 calories in this.

It couldn’t be simpler.

Pilsner malt, Saaz hops and Czech yeast. That’s it.

Sometimes simple is exactly what you want.

Why bother dressing it up?

It is what it is.

Beer.

Garage Project are good at the edges and not so flash in the middle, so not a lot of hope  in this, but I'm sure it'll be passable.

Beer - #256 - Garage Project - Trip Hop

Sunday brings with it a Garage Project - Trip Hop - Brewed by Garage Project in the Style of an India Pale Ale (IPA), and of course they're in Wellington, New Zealand

The brewer says - "We love NZ Hops. How much? Here’s how much. Triple hopped with, Pacificica, Motueka and Riwaka hops in increasingly lavish quantities throughout the boil, Trip Hop’s bitter but (we hope) balanced on a malt base of pale, Carahelles, Vienna and Caraaroma. Rich amber red and redolent of the Nelson hop fields. Think easy drinking for resin heads and pucker up."

So stand by for bitterness from this a 650ml (22 Fl Oz) bottle of a 5.6% ABV beer. which is all of 2.9 standard drink units in NZ, and my guesstimate is around 300 calories in this bottle.

Of course a bitter aroma on opening, lots of the grass, but also other things.

Pours with a really lively head of fluffy bubbles, but they recede a bit to something more normal, and has a bitter aroma that I'm not familiar with, but which isn't unpleasant.

Plenty Floral things going on and there is a fair crack of malt sweetness to asset with the drinking.

This, to me, is more an English style bitter, for the reason that although you get an idea that the brewer wanted hops to be the thing they've run off and hidden themselves quietly and unobtrusively in the background.

A soft easy drinking beer, hardly a classic or one for the scarp-book from Garage Project, who's output any sane man would have trouble keeping up with.

The pdubyah-o-meter says that this would be 6 and one half on the random scale of arbitrary , making this an average beer in the scheme of things. Hey if you were out and someone wanted to 'try' a bitter her this might be the thing that you could get them by way of introduction.

To me however, to finish, I think this is a little thin and without a lot of depth and carry. I think that the hop aroma is pleasant, and the bunch of grass and flora notes that are delivered are pleasant and fulfilling. But it might be too sweet, and too soft. Not one for the scrap-book.

For background today,  the cricket plays to itself on the teevee and  Hooverphonic do their grooving on the music machine, accompanied by the drone of late afternoon lawn mowing somewhere in the distance. It could be a lot worse.

Beer - #242 - Garage Project - Day Of The Dead

Keeping in theme with heavy metal then, or not, I have the pleasure of a Garage Project beer, this one  "Day Of The Dead" Brewed by Garage Project in the rather mixed style of a  Spice/Herb/Vegetable beer, and they are of course in the windy city of Wellington, New Zealand.

The brewer says "Black Lager" though , for this, a 650ml bottle of a 6.7% ABV beer, making it in NZ 3.44 standard drink units.   This would then be similar in taste then to the Rogue Farms – Dirtoir Black Lager that I had and rated a high 9, he said hopefully.

Lager, but not as we know it. Garage Project’s Day of the Dead - astrong black lager inspired by the Aztec beverage xocolatl, “a bitter, frothy, spicy drink” combining cocoa and chili. Brewed with smoked chipotle chili, refermented with organic blue agave syrup (the basis of Tequila) and conditioned over raw cocoa nibs - rich and dark, Day of the Dead is smooth and drinkable with a complex mix of smoke, chocolate and restrained chili heat. A true celebration of the dark side. First available November 1, in celebration of  El Día de los Muertos - Mexico’s Day of the Dead.

Opening you get a cocoa aroma,  Pours with a decent head, dark dark black (it does say black lager), but the aroma is hard to pick now.

To the taste though. This is sort of lager like, but it isn't. They've faffed with it of course, and then this loses the 'aaah' in lager.  What you get is a brief familiar lager introduction taste and 'bang' a sucker punch of spice zing. Not a punch in the mouth, more a playful punch on the arm.

So I'm a little confused, this is 'hot' in the way that that hard to describe, there is more a pinch at the back of the throat, and you play with trying to identify what exactly is causing it. I have no idea, so I refer to the label,  and some chipotle in tequila has been added. Makes Sense.

Not sense ending in -ible because this isn't at all sensible.  It is a good thing though. Because (a) you have no idea what you're drinking, a lager or a spiced beer (2) if you drink it all you forget that it's 3 1/2 drinks you just had, because (c) you can't easily pick that you have a beer of stronger than normal. But this brings me to (4) Could you go another ?

I don't think I could, and I have a La Calevera Catrina, in the fridge, the companion to this, and that by all counts has Chilli that might kick your teeth in - (I'm kidding) (I hope).

As this  gets warmer it begins to gather more body about it, and turns it hands to a more porter like profile. But with a kicker that is more muted but there, like a mosquito in your ear at night, just out of reach, and it appears to tail off the more you have, or the warmer it gets, and it's only a matter of degrees.

This would be a fantastic "to share" beer with friends as a discussion, and the pdubyah-o-meter says at 8 this would be a very good idea. It's not at all like the Rogue Farms Dirtoir Black Lager, but that's a good thing, because they're really not the same thing.