After a nice dinner and a couple of beers at Wynkoop Brewery we headed back to our hotel. Conveniently, there was a liquor store across the street, so I thought I head in and see if I could find some beers I couldn’t get in Illinois. This Deschutes beer sounded interesting, and after my trip to Oregon, I knew they had some pretty good beers.
The bottle said, “From the nothing’s sacred pacific northwest comes a whole new beer style: Cascadian Dark Ale. Welcome to the curious place where the velvet dark of roasted malts meets the hop snap of IPA. Cheers.” This was a 22oz bottle which says it has 6.5% ABV and 70 IBU’s.
It was a deep brown color, and it had a thick tan head which had some incredible retention. The aroma was an obvious Cascade hop smell, but I also noticed some slight malt sweetness in it.
The body was light, and it was fairly smooth and crisp. There were some light malty up front, quickly followed by a bit of a burnt malt astringency and a nice cascade hop flavor. Both the hop flavor and burnt malt bitterness came through even stronger in the aftertaste.
This kind of beer isn’t meant for pairing with food, but I think it might go well with a dessert brownie or something chocolaty that would match the burnt malt flavors.
I thought it was a good beer, and I like the dark beer flavors with a bold hop presence. This one was a little bit astringent for my taste, but it was still good and I’m glad I got a chance to try this style of beer.
My Rating: 
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