Beer – #242 – Garage Project – Day Of The Dead
Keeping in theme with heavy metal then, or not, I have the pleasure of a Garage Project beer, this one “Day Of The Dead” Brewed by Garage Project in the rather mixed style of a Spice/Herb/Vegetable beer, and they are of course in the windy city of Wellington, New Zealand.
The brewer says “Black Lager” though , for this, a 650ml bottle of a 6.7% ABV beer, making it in NZ 3.44 standard drink units. This would then be similar in taste then to the Rogue Farms – Dirtoir Black Lager that I had and rated a high 9, he said hopefully.
Lager, but not as we know it. Garage Project’s Day of the Dead – astrong black lager inspired by the Aztec beverage xocolatl, “a bitter, frothy, spicy drink” combining cocoa and chili. Brewed with smoked chipotle chili, refermented with organic blue agave syrup (the basis of Tequila) and conditioned over raw cocoa nibs – rich and dark, Day of the Dead is smooth and drinkable with a complex mix of smoke, chocolate and restrained chili heat. A true celebration of the dark side. First available November 1, in celebration of El Día de los Muertos – Mexico’s Day of the Dead.
Opening you get a cocoa aroma, Pours with a decent head, dark dark black (it does say black lager), but the aroma is hard to pick now.
To the taste though. This is sort of lager like, but it isn’t. They’ve faffed with it of course, and then this loses the ‘aaah’ in lager. What you get is a brief familiar lager introduction taste and ‘bang’ a sucker punch of spice zing. Not a punch in the mouth, more a playful punch on the arm.
So I’m a little confused, this is ‘hot’ in the way that that hard to describe, there is more a pinch at the back of the throat, and you play with trying to identify what exactly is causing it. I have no idea, so I refer to the label, and some chipotle in tequila has been added. Makes Sense.
Not sense ending in -ible because this isn’t at all sensible. It is a good thing though. Because (a) you have no idea what you’re drinking, a lager or a spiced beer (2) if you drink it all you forget that it’s 3 1/2 drinks you just had, because (c) you can’t easily pick that you have a beer of stronger than normal. But this brings me to (4) Could you go another ?
I don’t think I could, and I have a La Calevera Catrina, in the fridge, the companion to this, and that by all counts has Chilli that might kick your teeth in – (I’m kidding) (I hope).
As this gets warmer it begins to gather more body about it, and turns it hands to a more porter like profile. But with a kicker that is more muted but there, like a mosquito in your ear at night, just out of reach, and it appears to tail off the more you have, or the warmer it gets, and it’s only a matter of degrees.
This would be a fantastic “to share” beer with friends as a discussion, and the pdubyah-o-meter says at 8 this would be a very good idea. It’s not at all like the Rogue Farms Dirtoir Black Lager, but that’s a good thing, because they’re really not the same thing.
A life just as ordinary 
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