Garage Project Day of the Dead

Now this was an interesting beer. Wierd additives in beer is something I feel a bit divided about... The German side of me feels quite strongly that beer should really be just beer, and you don't really need anything other than malt, hops, yeast and water. But on the flipside, I quite like experimenting and putting wierd crap into things, so the idea of agave (some kind of sweetener I gather), cacao beans, and chipotle chilli. All delicious things. And a dark lager... (most dark beers in NZ are ales - stouts, porters, dark ales, american brown ales, etc.) one of my favourite things (love a German Dunkel, or a dark Bock).

Given that most Garage Project beers are incredibly pungent with hops aromas, and most of their left field beers are quite far left field, I poured the beer expecting a wierd chocolate-mexican-chilli aroma... but just got a real nice aroma of a dark beer (hints of roasty chocolate goodness, heck yeah). And on first taste I was actually a little disappointed at the lack of ridiculousness, but this was soon overcome with the appreciation that this is a really nice dark beer. Smooth chocolatiness, a nice smooth malt character (hard to tell what comes from specialty malts and what comes from the cacao) and just the right amount of hops... with quite a subtle but just notable chilli flavour as its in the mouth and a tiny little sting of chilli burn in the aftertaste.

Overall this beer really impressed me, much more subtle than a typical Garage Project beer, but yet showcasing all the random guest ingredients (although I have no idea what Agave is, so I don't know if I could taste it).

garageproject.co.nz

ABV: 6.7%
Brewery: Garage Project
Region: Wellington
Style: Black Lager
Wife check: "Yep, there's a lot going on in there"