New Belgium Pluot

This is another odd one from the makers of Fat Tire.  Not quite as bad as the last one I reviewed (which was truly a kaleidoscope of failure), as this was a promising idea.  Actually, there really is only one or two things that they really messed up; they should fix those next time and maybe it will be good. 

It's a Belgian pale/blonde/golden ale fermented with pluots (a hybrid between apricots and plums) and wild yeast ("brett").


It looks bright gold, like this:

It neither produced nor retained much in the way of foam despite that trail of bubbles you see there.  It did have some lacing.  When I smelled it from the bottle, it mostly smelled like plums.  When I poured it out and smelled it from the glass, it smelled like a mix of brett (largely lemons and apple skins) and soap.

The primary thing wrong with the flavor is that it does not hide it's alcohol very well, and it's alcohol flavor resembles that semi-plastic, semi-fusel flavor of malt liquor.  Additional notes of plums, raw grape skins (tannins), red grapes in general, and brett make the whole package come across like a classier King Cobra brewed with brett and a ton of fruit.  If you can imagine that, you might get an idea of how this tastes...King Cobra with more fruit and more plastic.

The second and final thing that unwinds this package is the texture.  The only reason there are any bubbles in that picture up above is because that glass has a laser-etching on the bottom (and unlike most laser-etches glasses, this one actually backs up the marketing).  If I poured this into a standard beer glass, it would have been a bit flat and too thick.

I had no expectations for this beer, both because I have no idea what a pluot tastes like and because the last fruited beer I had from this company was a mess.  Still, this was a disappointment.  If I want something that resembles malt liquor, I'll just have some malt liquor that is properly thin and fizzy; and leave this thick, plasticy mess to its own devices.