Beer – #549 – Garage Project – Louisiana Voodoo Queen

Special beer, special music, social numbers and special friends.

Louisiana Voodoo Queen, from Garage Project, perhaps the most bonkers beer I’ve had.

Best enjoyed from a stemmed glass rubbed on a black cat.

This is a 650ml bottle that is beer of 9.5% ABV, that’s 285 calories a serve, and 3.33 standard drink units in the bottle,

Brewed by Garage Project in the random style that is: Special/Other, and GP are in Wellington, New Zealand

This is a powerful dark brew.

Hoodoo Voodoo

Inspired by the tradition of New Orleans coffee and the Louisiana Voodoo ‘cure-all’, Voodoo Queen is a rich, dark ale, redolent of plum fruit and spice and infused with chicory root and a specially roasted batch of Brazilian beans conjured up by our friends at Flight Coffee.

So lay down your three nickels and imbibe with caution – powerful forces lie within.

Best enjoyed from a stemmed glass rubbed on a black cat.

What could go wrong? Apart from not having a black cat, we have a sort or mixed up thing that is somewhat a Russian Blue, close enough is good enough. Or I’m hexed.

That is more like chocolate or coffee on opening, already I smile a bit. The rubbing the glass on the cat might have worked out,

The pure is dark , bit not pitch black more a deep brown, the head is lingering and not persistent.

Strangely the aroma in the glass is really muted and not at all easy to discern.

Mouthfeel is ‘thick’ and mostly the taste is of a deep Coffee, but there are other things, or something else, sweet and full underneath this, it’s a bit of an enigma.

It looks flat in the glass, but it is well carbonated. The coffee is rich and mellow, not burn or sour, leaving you with a pleasant after taste and linger.

In amongst it all is that nice steeped raisins taste, fruity. The more you search for them the more you notice. I also notice the numbness on the tip of my tongue. I’m going to rub the glass on the cat a bit more, it might be a curse. Probably isn’t since no such thing exists.

I have to say that this is quite pleasant but not special or outstanding drinking. That isn’t to say that it isn’t a clever or pleasant beer, it so is. But it is mostly the coffee thing, and that isn’t such a thing is it?  Not without a bunch of depth perhaps, it’s the predominant note but it is a note not the body.

I just wanted more.

I went and had dinner, which was Lamb in a Lemon/Balsamic marinade, with fresh Rosemary, and some roast assorted vegetables like Potato, red and Green Capsicum, Orange Kumera, Onion and Corgettes, in case you were asking.  Oh and some fresh herb bread toasted just to make it less like a Sunday roast, and we sat in the late evening sun. Just Saying.

Anyway, second go at this. Pour does elicit a head that seems firmer and more persistent. Aroma is still mostly coffee.

It obviously has warmed up somewhat, the carbonation seems to either be more pronounced or the other flavours have become more muted. The finish becomes more dry and leaves the tongue a bit sour around the edges. It is still a nice beer.

I don’t know that  I’d recommend or rave about this to anyone though, the name and the contents seems to be a world apart. Then again how would you distil the essence of Louisiana into a beer, I’ve been to New Orleans a few times and this didn’t remind me of that. Perhaps I didn’t stray far enough from Bourbon Street

The pdubyah-o-meter rates this as an 8  of its things from the thing. Who doesn’t like a coffee beer? Well I imagine a few people. But I like a coffee beer, there is the C4 for instance that I find divine. Anyway, this is a beer that is predominant in coffee-ness and it somehow lacks a body or middle that would make it more full or rounded. I didn’t enjoy the dry finish so much in this instance, and the look of the beer is unappealing, flat and a bit dour.

The double dip review

1. Am I enjoying it? I am because I like coffee and I like beer. it goes well, but adding coffee to beer for the sake of it never ends well.
2. Would I have another? There are better Coffee based beers that I’d go to first.
3. Would I share with a friend on a porch and set the world to rights? As a conversation piece the name alone would be interesting, the delivery of the beer based on the build up not so much, it’s a bit of a damper on things that this has such a high and well obscured and going early in the evening on this makes for a short evening really.

Musically, It’s Visage, Visage were a British synthpop band, formed in London in 1978. New Romantics.  Steve Strange died this last few days. They played songs on the radio and I still know the words.  You should all know “Fade to Grey”

It made me get up and have a quick shuffle about the lounge in a old school way. Just glorious.

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• R.I.P. Steve Strange of Visage 1959-2015