Beer – #1,054 – 8 Wired / Pinta – Opium Cake
8 Wired Opium Cake, collaboration beer with a Polish brewer Pinta. This bottle c/- the BeerJerk club as beer of the week. Obviously made with amongst other things Poppy Seeds.
based on the traditional
Opium cake comes in a 330 ml bottle, a beer that is 11% ABV, which is around that 330 calories a serve size, and that would then be 2.6 standard drinks in NZ
Who doesn’t like cake?
Another collab with our polish friends Browar PINTA, who once again made the trip all the way to NZ.
So, What could possibly go wrong?
Well the Vinyl is mint! The odd pop and hiss but it really is enjoyable.
Typical Lactose sweetness on opening, a hint of orange peel, and it seems quite peppery on the nose.
The pour is thick muddy indolent brown beer that plonks into the glass and sit maudlin without much by way of head, although a thin film appears. Carbonation bubbles prickle away.
Oddly that strong lactose sweetness note is not so present in the glass.
It is a remarkably full beer in the mouthfeel, not surprising really, just remarkable, and then there is a complete carnival of flavours, there’s a sharp but not pleasing bitterness, then what can only be described as a burst of orange which leads to somewhat a dryness at the finish.
I’m not sure what a poppyseed in a beer tastes like, I like a poppy seed on my bread of course.
There’s a lot going on here. That aroma that I thought wasn’t there is, but it’s an odd thing of something undefined and just out of reach, the beer appears to know what it’s about but is a little all over the place. Of course not getting the cultural references that this calls to makes nailing that taste as being accurate or otherwise is difficult.
The pdubyah-o-meter rates this as 8 of its things from the thing. It’s nice and it’s interesting but it’s just a bit off key and a little off centre for me, I like the mouthfeel, and the orange burst, even that dryness, and then I’m a bit lost as to the other things going on, that aren’t un-enjoyable but I don’t have a reference for.
The double dip review
- Where did I get it? The BeerJerk club it’s beer of the week.
- Am I enjoying it? Oddly both yes and no
- Would I have another? I’d probably need a Makowiec to make more sense of it
- Would I share with a friend on a porch and set the world to rights? Its a tough cal but I don’t know that without that reference point this would be much of a taking point, you could take about the favours and interpretation of the poppy seed for instance, but that’s a sideshow.
Music for this: ”East Side Story by Squeeze from 1981 on Vinyl, but you can listen on Spotify.
One of the songs – F-Hole has these lyrics
Her face a painting palette
I stomached all her habits,
Sipped her snow balls poshly like a judge
But left her lipstick traces on her mug.
We watched each other closely
She looks like Bela Lugosi,
A life just as ordinary 