The Lips of Faith series beers frequently includes collaborations between New Belgium Brewery and another brewery. Clutch is a dark sour ale, and the collaborating group here was the Maryland Hard-Rockers. It's 9% ABV.
Appearance: As promised, Clutch is dark -- opaque cherry-black. Though I wasn't able to snap a photo quickly enough to capture it, a thick three- to four-finger head gathered when poured. There is minimal lacing on the glass, and both the full head and the residual head are a dark cherry brown color.
Smell: A chocolate-covered cherry lollipop. Seriously. On the nose, there's not a lot of evidence of sourness that I expect from the taste. It's simply a very sweet smelling beer that has a smidge of coffee character at the end.
Taste: Now here is a beer that tastes exactly how it smells -- the first to hit the palate is rich dark chocolate with cherry, followed by a short but pronounced coffee note. There is a bit of a sour funk that comes through right at the finish, but it is very, very mild.
Mouthfeel: This is a thick, viscous beer, very similar both in taste and physical character to a stout. It's really much more reminiscent of a stout overall than of a sour ale, which it is supposed to be.
Overall: This is no doubt a tasty beer, but I have to say, I'm still kind of disappointed. It's basically a less sweet version of Stone's recent collaboration on the Cherry Chocolate Stout (which I'll review here at some point,) and given that it's billed as a dark sour ale and not a stout, I was expecting something completely different. There is, as I said, a bit of funk at the end, but honestly, if I wasn't expecting a sour, I may have just as easily thought that the very slight sourness at the end was just residual bitterness from the roasted malt/coffee flavors. I have another bottle of this that I'll hold onto for awhile to see how the flavors develop and change, because as of now it doesn't really live up to what is promised on the label. Though, as I said, it's not a bad tasting beer, it's so far my least favorite of the Lips of Faith series.
3/5
Appearance: As promised, Clutch is dark -- opaque cherry-black. Though I wasn't able to snap a photo quickly enough to capture it, a thick three- to four-finger head gathered when poured. There is minimal lacing on the glass, and both the full head and the residual head are a dark cherry brown color.
Smell: A chocolate-covered cherry lollipop. Seriously. On the nose, there's not a lot of evidence of sourness that I expect from the taste. It's simply a very sweet smelling beer that has a smidge of coffee character at the end.
Taste: Now here is a beer that tastes exactly how it smells -- the first to hit the palate is rich dark chocolate with cherry, followed by a short but pronounced coffee note. There is a bit of a sour funk that comes through right at the finish, but it is very, very mild.
Mouthfeel: This is a thick, viscous beer, very similar both in taste and physical character to a stout. It's really much more reminiscent of a stout overall than of a sour ale, which it is supposed to be.
Overall: This is no doubt a tasty beer, but I have to say, I'm still kind of disappointed. It's basically a less sweet version of Stone's recent collaboration on the Cherry Chocolate Stout (which I'll review here at some point,) and given that it's billed as a dark sour ale and not a stout, I was expecting something completely different. There is, as I said, a bit of funk at the end, but honestly, if I wasn't expecting a sour, I may have just as easily thought that the very slight sourness at the end was just residual bitterness from the roasted malt/coffee flavors. I have another bottle of this that I'll hold onto for awhile to see how the flavors develop and change, because as of now it doesn't really live up to what is promised on the label. Though, as I said, it's not a bad tasting beer, it's so far my least favorite of the Lips of Faith series.
3/5
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