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| Shoulda name it Zombie Lion. |
If you could project a camera into the think-tank offices at the other dozens of brewhouses around Austin upon receiving the news of TWO more Jester King releases, you might see a bunch of stares that would melt Alaska. They are a very difficult brewery to keep up with in terms of stock, even as a casual drinker and impulsive collector -- I couldn't even imagine being their direct competitor. [Note: I'm sure all Austin brewers are friends and supportive of each others' efforts; and have all their wives make shortbread cookies for all the other wives, too.]
Here is yet another limited release by the farmhouse brewery that uses four ingredients to make almost all of their beers. Noble King, by comparison, is a bit of a middle-weight ABV contender in the family of Jester King beers. Because they are a traditional farmhouse brewery, they manufacture very low ABV beers that top out around 2.8%, and because they are fucking Rock n Roll, they produce beers that make your face melt at about 10% alcohol. Noble King is right in the middle of that, at a happily quaffable 5.3% -- about the same as your typical American Adjunct Lager.
No, this beer will not gut rot me the way I typically like, so, the promise of a better day will have to be displayed in the craftistry of Noble King, itself. In other words, I'm probably not gonna drink 20 of these, like a day-session of drinking Lone Star by the smoker, so Noble King's nuances will have to be the star of this show.
When Melissa and I initiated a household pubcrawl, this was the first beer we uncorked and shared in the adventure around the blue house on Avenue H -- the reasons being 1) Low in alcohol, thus 2) We needed to have an alert palate, and 3) The labeling was so awesome (in-house Jester King artist!), and finally 4) We totally missed on the labeling that said we should wait at least 24 hours to uncork after initial refrigeration. Oh snap.
What we got out of Noble King was this: It has that trademarked, barnyard funkiness that reminds me of a horse blanket. Anyone who has ever walked through a stable will know that back palatal flavor that you get when doing so. Noble King finishes like that. At the nose, I got a bit of fresh grass and subtle hops. The yeast really meddles with the malts and makes this beer really drinkable and dry, like one of those pre-ironic regional beers from the 80s, like Pearl or Blatz. I haven't had a beer like this in a long time, and I found it rather nostalgia-inducing and pretty tasty. I'd especially like to taste this in an imperial style in order to up the ABV to around 8%.
Next time, I will follow the rules to see if they were right in scolding me right there on the bottle.
ABV: 5.3%
Acquired: Spec's
★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
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