Beer Review: Uncommon Brewers Siamese Twin Ale, a Dubbel w/Lemongrass+
For my first review on Steemit (and my first week participating in #BeerSaturday) I present Uncommon Brewers Siamese Twin Ale. For this review, and all of my reviews, I use the BJCP format of appearance, aroma, flavor, mouthfeel, and overall. However, I don't quantify any of my reviews with ratings. Instead I have a simple recommendation at the end of the review.
Uncommon Brewers is small brewery in Santa Cruz, California who specialize in beers that are "unusual, eclectic, and undoubtedly uncommon." They started in 2008 and were one of the first craft breweries to distribute their beer in cans. They were trailblazers ahead of their time and even their beers reflect a willingness to do things a little differently.
Siamese Twin Ale is no exception. It is a Belgian-style dubbel, brewed with whole lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, and Indian coriander. This beer comes in a 16 ounce can but my photos are a few years old and Uncommon Brewers have updated their design since then. See the photo below to see what the new can looks like.
Appearance
This beer has a deep dark amber color that is almost opaque but has a slight glow. Despite being dark, when you hold it up to the light, you cam tell it is crystal clear. The head has an aged-parchment paper color and has foamy bubbles with average retention. The head leaves plenty of lacing on the glass.
Aroma
Although the kafir lime and lemongrass are not in your face they do add a subtle nuance to the beer. It adds a slight earth perfume-like bouquet, a subtle aroma that smooths out the banana esters and cloves. It also has a roasty quality that is reminiscent of a light to medium roast coffee. But is also has a hard candy aroma to it as well. Quite a complex aroma profile, and very inviting. Finally, it has that aroma that most dubbels have, which I describe as dusty, like an attic.
Flavor
The flavor is hot, spicy, sweet, and has only a little bitterness. The balance of this beer is definitely on the sweet-and-malty side but it has just the right amount of heat from the alcohol to balance the sweetness and even make it a bit spicy. The roasted aroma is not a prevalent in the flavor and the earthiness remains.
Mouthfeel
This beer has a little less than average carbonation and being a high gravity beer the texture is viscous. Although it is thick, it's not like motor oil, more like a very light syrup that you might drizzle over poached pears with some cinnamon and sugar.
Overall
Overall, this is a very solid dubbel. It had been a long time since I last had this beer and my last impression was that there wasn't enough kafir (I really enjoy the strong flavor of kafir lime leaves). What I had forgotten was that this is just an all around delicious dubbel. This time around, after searching deep for the kafir and lemongrass I discovered the elegance of it's subtlety in this beer. It's also a great bargain. For the price you might pay for one or two 330 ml bottles of Belgian dubbels, you get four 16 oz. cans.
Recommendation
Drink it!
Recommendations are on a 3 point scale: "drink it," "you decide," and "don't drink it."
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Copyright (C) 2018 by David Jensen and beer47.com
Good to see another beer reviewer here on steemit, I try to do one or two beer reviews a week as well. They aren't typically my highest earning posts, but often earn enough that I get to enjoy a free craft beer.
I typically like really hoppy rich IPAs as a good thing to sip on, or flavor packed thinner beers like a Blue moon to drink a bunch of all night.
But my favorite beer of all time forever and ever is a
FREE BEER!
Upvoted and followed you.
Cheers
Cheers, and thanks for following! I hope to have at least one beer review per week. I have a backlog of unpublished reviews that will be perfect for Steemit.
Nice review, I like the dark color, and the off-white head!!
Nice color I like dark beers I went light for this week here is my entry https://steemit.com/beersaturday/@isteemithard/hollywood-mango-steemit-beersaturday-challenge-week-32
Nice review, looks like an interesting beer, I’ve had lemongrass beers before and enjoyed them! I’ll keep an eye out for it
This sounds like a mighty flavorful brew. You said the flavor is "hot, spicy, sweet, and has only a little bitterness". I do not usually hear all of these associated with a single beer. Great review!
😀🍻
A Belgian Dubel with Thai inspired herbs, that is a very intriguing, and dare I say it, uncommon mix of flavours. Welcome to the steemit beer review community
Yeah, it's a little out there but it works.
Thanks and cheers!
I'm typically not a huge fan of undercarbonated beer, but i'll try anything once! where does one get such a brew down here in the City of Angels?
Hmm, based on the photos, the carbonation level seems fine. (I wrote this review a while ago). Dubbels in a bottle/can are usually more carbonated than your average beer and I think this one came in at average. So it would be below average for the style.
You can try to look for an Irish or English pub with hand pumps, that will be a guarantee of undercarbonanted or even uncarbonated beer.
Cask conditioned beer is great stuff! It need not be an English or Irish pub though. There's a few breweries and craft beer bars in California (and the US) that serve beer on cask, usually on beer engine but sometimes directly from the firkin. During SF beer week there are at least 2 events that feature only cask conditioned beers. 🍻
As for carbonation level for cask conditioned beers, if it's flat, then beer is not fresh and should be avoided. IMEO, just because flat cask beer happens doesn't make it right. 😉
I am not an expert on California beer scene so I suggested, what would be a natural place to look for uncarbonated beer for me. When it comes to freshness, I think there may be difference between UK and US, In here cask beer poured from pump almost always is totally flat with a big white head and it happens very rarely that it is unfresh, but as I said, there may be differences between countries. Do you have any comparative experience regarding real ale in UK and cask ale in California?
I talked to some brewers about this last night. One brewer specializes in English-style ales. 😀
If a cask beer has a head, it has carbonation. It's just that it's so much lower that a carbonated beer that it seems flat.
Regarding freshness, the recommendation was to go to CAMRA approved pubs.
So it turns out we're on the same page. 😀🍻
Excellent review mate. The photography is excellent, what camera are you using?
This sounds like a really interesting beer. I'd definitely be keen to give one a shot. Welcome to #beersaturday!
Lemongrass in beer sounds very interesting. And with some spice it sounds quite complex.
Thanks! These photos were shot with a Nikon D300s. Sometime I will use my Pixel and the photos still come out great.
They look great, its clear that you took the time to set up the photoshoot nicely. I normally just plonk my beer in some grass or on a table overlooking something different.
I might start creating a nice setting as well.
I think that was back when I actually spent the time to set up a lightbox for my beer photo shoots. Over time I realized I didn't need the lightbox just a good solid color for a backdrop. 😉🍻
Great review! Congratulations!
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