In the world of Arbor Ales Friday is experimental day, it’s “Freestyle Friday.”
It’s a day when weird and wonderful ideas are brewed and it’s an idea I like a lot.
It excites me in the same way that watching improvised music being made excites me, piques my interest, makes me want to see what happens.
Quinque is a beer with five different grains and five different American hops.
It’s a golden ale that pours a rich orange with a big cloud of a head that eventually settles down into a comfy white pillow.
The smell is fruit and yeast and Weetabix, rich, grainy, steely and sweet.
Taking a sip you get the feeling that there are two distinct rival gangs getting to know each other in your mouth.
There are the four grains that that combine to give a honeyed wheat filled, über cereal flavour, all woody and nutty but coated in caramel.
Then there’s the gang of four hops that, true to form for Arbor, are ultra dry.
They’re like an old studded wristband wearing rocker made of fresh grapefruit skins, mandarin juice and mango flesh, a hint of peach acting as the patchouli fragrance.
And that rocker gives you a happy sock in the jaw made of lemon pips, lime rind, clementine pith and elderflower water crispness.
The finish is a long drawn out and lingering blend of tree bark bitter dryness.
I really enjoy freestyle fridays.