December 15th - Gun Hill Brewing Company - Friend Zone

Since my wife is baking up a dessert for a Christmas party tonight, I figured there's no time like the present for a dessert beer early this evening.  Tonight's selection comes from the Bronx in New York and Gun Hill Brewing Company.  This should be something you'd be able to snag if you were in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area, but don't hold me to that.  I figure it's close enough to the Big Apple for distribution to extend down towards PA.  This one, however, comes from my friends in Seattle, WA at Tavour.

I won't continue to bore you with Tavour details.  If you got time to kill, you can read about two of my experiences with them here as well as here if you have the time or the desire (or if you're a first time reader this year!).

we're glad you're here! 

When the push notification came out around noon that day a month or so ago via the app, this beer piqued my interest and my taste buds at the same time.  Imagine my delight as I read the description below from my smartphone screen:

a screenshot from Tavour.com and my prior purchases

I'm down for a blonde ale with vanilla and coffee!  Let's face it, this sounds like a recipe for something pretty special!  However, it is called Friend Zone...

thanks Kenny!

That name has the potential to sound ominous, but I will choose to be optimistic, at least for the time being.  If you don't understand why it sounds ominous, maybe you've been under a rock for the past few years.  Please feel free to brush up on your friend zone definition before moving on today.  If you're good with the hip vocabulary lesson, carry on!

Poured from a 16 ounce can, this beer was a golden blonde color with a thin lacing of off-white head at the top.  Just from the looks of things, I'm expecting a golden stout-like experience here with some additional flavor coming from the vanilla.

The aroma was only that of some slight hints of coffee and a slight vanilla sweetness.  Unless my nose is off today, there isn't much to gather there.  Vanilla hits the palate first followed by the sweetness that I also gathered from the aroma.  It is either from the malts used or possibly some lactose.  There is a slight coffee bitterness, but not really as pronounced as I thought it would be for a tiramisu beer.  For how it looks, it's a pretty medium-full bodies beer with moderate carbonation.  A sweetness lingers on the tongue after each sip with just a hint of coffee in the background.

Even if you're not a coffee fan in a beer, this one may be worth a shot.  There isn't too much that the coffee brings to the table, in my opinion, just a slight bitterness.  The flavors are definitely interesting, but nothing that will bring me back to seeking this out another time.  If you run across it though, I would give it a shot!