Dark Steel Black IPA. The beer, already awarded.

Hey, beer fellows! How are you? I love the Tuesdays, because that’s the time when I make my posts for the #beersaturday challenge. This week I went again to Pazardzhik, where the Rhombus Craft Brewery brews their great products. There were 3 lectures about home and craft brewing. We discussed 3 topics. The off flavors of beer, temperature control of fermentation and handling the yeast and isolating a pure culture. Well the last one was really something new to me!

Well, that’s really a very broad topic, so I will continue with my weekly #beersaturday beer. As you may know from my posts, the Rhombus Craft Brewery organizes homebrewers’ contests and the winning beer is produced by the authors recipe and with the help of homewrewer himself in the brewery.

So let’s see today’s beer!

DARK STEEL Black IPA

This is the beer, that won the winter contest of the brewery - Dark Rhombus, which is exclusively for dark beers, as you can propose. What is unique about it is the name, that the authors used for this Black IPA. But why DARK and why STEEL?
Well, you will probably guess the BLACK part. And STEEL?

All Bulgarians know the town of Pernik, which is located right next to the capital of Bulgaria. And there are two things, that Pernik is famous for - the VW Glof, which almost all the population of Pernik possesses (second hand, third hand, 10th hand... who cares!?!?) and “Винкело”, which literally is steel profile, and is usually used to beat other people, which make you nervous! Well, one of the homebrewers, whose beer won the Dark Rhombus is from Pernik. And it may sound like something impossible, but he is a very kind and warm person!

So well... here is their beer:

To be fair... I’m very doubtful about this beer style. It is supposed to combine characteristics of two absolutely different styles - the heavy roasted maltiness of the dark and special malts, and the hoppy lightness of the classical IPA. It’s very difficult to combine hops and the heavy malts and to make hops stay in front of the beer. Or should they stay in front? Maybe the maltiness should be better pronounced? I’m not really sure.

This exact one smelled like chocolate and cocoa as soon as beer got into the glass. Well, some very pronounced flower and fruit aroma made company to these heavy notes. What was great here is the foam. Very thick, very lasting. Brown... Heavy brown in color. It reminded me of some kind of dessert. And with this pronounced aroma... oh!
There is not added cocoa in the beer, contrary to the expectations, coming from this great sweet aroma. The brewery uses Chocolate malt in some of their dark beers, and it is definitely here too.

Although all the photos are in B&W style, I MUST share this color with you:

In mouth beer stays absolutely thick and sweety. Chocolate is even more pronounced, with some dark fruits making company. Some very pronounced flowers in the taste too. A little bit of citrus finish, but overall hops are not very well expressed. If it should be an IPA, then I really want these hops!

The beer really resembles me of an American Chocolate Stout. That’s what I was going to think if it wasn’t the IPA abbreviation. That’s why I’m saying it’s very complicate to make something characteristic for both beer styles. This doesn’t mean, that I do not like this beer! It’s absolutely awesome, thick and enjoyable to drink. It’s just the style that confuses me here.

So... that’s all, folks! Enjoy your #beersaturday!
Cheers! 🍻

And remember!
@zver.beer is coming! Be prepared!