549. Flat 12 Bierworks Nunmoere ABA

Another trip to Indianapolis for cyclo-cross means another trip to Flat 12. This time we packed food in, and spent some time hanging out in the tap room so we could sample more of their beers. Our consensus: Flat 12 beers are clean, dry, and well-attenuated across the board. And also super drinkable. We were going to try the Lacto-Matic Milk Stout and compare, as it seemed like the best candidate to have some residual body, but the keg blew right before we went up to get samples. So it will have to wait until next time. Our last beer from Flat 12 was Half-Cycle IPA, which was delicious.

Nunmoere pours a crystal clear dark chocolate with orange

Run that hill!

highlights; the head is a creamy tan with good retention that re-rouses easily. The nose is a clean mix of pine, herbal, and roast; at first seems like it won’t work, but it quickly starts to grow on you. While clean, it is also surprisingly pungent—Jeff described it as a fig that had been charcoal-roasted to a crisp accompanied by a subtle metallic tang. There is also a touch of roast creaminess amongst the evergreen hop aromas. Flavors start with roasted caramel and chocolate in the front, with pine and evergreen hop flavor helping transition into the bitterness of the middle. There is a subtle biscuit with the caramel as the beer heads into the final third, with resin hop bitterness, chocolate, coffee, and roast the predominant flavors, and a long lingering bitterness—while not especially bright and clean, it is still quite enjoyable. The body is medium, lightly chewy, and rounded—it is uncluttered, but still has a residual maltiness that helps carry the aggressively hopped body, lending support to the roast and bitterness that carries the beer. As well, the charcoal roast and hop bitterness pair especially well in this beer. This is the closest to a well-hopped lighter-bodied stout that we’ve seen in a Black IPA, much more so that Sixpoint’s Diesel—the flavors are brighter and more distinct with an almost aggressive but balanced relationship between the roast and bitterness. Delicious, but not for the faint of heart.

We also tried two of the 12 Beers of Christmas series, the Glazed Ham Porter and the Brandy Walkabout. The Glazed Ham Porter is good, but spiced, which means I am contractually obliged to complain about it. You all know my feelings on spices in beer. I will say that the spices are in balance with the beer, which is tantamount to me saying that I like it. The Brandy Walkabout was interesting: it was their normal Galaxy single hop pale ale aged on brandy-infused oak spirals. The vanilla and oak cut down on the overall hop flavor, and created a more distinctly smooth and creamy mouthfeel. I like the initial hop bite in the Walkabout Pale Ale, but this version does cut down on some of the sweeter malt flavors in the body—honey and caramel—that tend to get in the way. Choosing between the two versions of Walkabout would be hard, though, so I’ll just let my comments stand.

From the Flat 12 website: “Don’t let the color deceive you, this beer is lighter than it looks and packs a big hop punch. Loaded with 5 different American hops, Nunmoere is a complex bland of roasted malts and fragrant hops.”

ABV: 6.5%

IBU: 78

(12/16/2012)