Sarcasti-tasting Vol. 1: Mystic Descendant Suffolk Dark Ale Batch 01

The first batch of Descendant was released on 10/21/2011. Let us take a bit of a look at how this was stored and consumed.

This is a cat. He is standing in snow. Snow is outside. There is sunlight outside. Sunlight is bad for beer. I did not keep the bottle here.

This is a cellar. Notice the lack of light in the cellar. That, in combination with a fairly constant temperature, is much better than the backyard when it comes to storing beer for prolonged periods.

The above pot was just used to make gravy. The residue would taint the beer. In addition, it is still hot from the cooking. The bottle text of Descendant is so gracious as to suggest a serving temperature of 50 degrees so I did not serve the beer in this vessel. Furthermore, it is in fact what we call a "dick move" to serve beer in a tainted vessel then post a review.

For beer consumption, I prefer to use what we call a glass. Notice that it contains this wonderful substance called water. It is very handy for cleansing both glassware and palates. This particular glass was used with an IPA earlier. Allowing this to mix with Descendant then writing about it anyhow would be bad. Instead, I opted to clean it out thoroughly Then to be sure that the aforementioned gravy didn't taint my taste-buds, I rinsed those using water.

This is a glass of mead. It was poured for someone else. I will not be discussing this beverage as it has nothing to do with Descendant and using review text to go off on tangents about something completely different makes the person a beer advo--- er dick hole.

Notice that the bottle of beer is now sitting next to the clean glass. I cannot yet discuss the beer as seeing the vessel is not the same as seeing, tasting, or smelling the beer itself.

This is a cork. It is attached to a corkscrew. I used this as I intended to review/discuss the beer and spending any portion of the text on how pretentious, stupid, or dangerous corks are is sort of like saying "I am not evolved enough to use anything but a bottle opener. You should listen to me!"

Now the beer has been put into the glass. The massive head is partially the result of what we beer geeks call a "shitty pour." In my case, this occurred because I got distracted by a 65 lb. puppy. What I should do is take another try at this image where the head is half as thick like every other glass. However, I am now cuddling said puppy on the sofa and do not have a camera handy. So fuck journalistic integrity. This is a beer review, not something that is really held to any objective standard.

Mystic Brewery says the following about Descendant:

"Mystic Descendant is a beer descended from the cultural history of the Boston harbor area.  A dry Irish stout meets an English porter and is then fermented in the fermentorium with our saison yeast with a touch of the ubiquitous ingredient from the area's past: molasses.  The result is a uniqe[sic] beer; it has more dark fruit than a porter and less roast than a traditional stout, while having a different ester profile than a Belgian stout.  We thus dubbed our recipe a Suffolk Dark Ale, as an homage to our immigrant ancestors." Source: http://www.mystic-brewery.com/beer/mystic-descendant

As an IPA, this is absolutely terrible. It is dry like a nice stout but has these fruity undertones with less roast and this nice underlying hint of molasses. There's also a hint of a yeasty undertone that plays nicely off the aforementioned flavors. However, everybody know that the good beers are IPAs out of Vermont. So maybe this gets better as it warms up and the molasses comes out more. But I got it at Julio's while waiting for the wife to get out of work and didn't drive 5+ hours so it can't possibly be good! 

All assholery aside, I've got to say that this beer is absolutely delightful. The fruitiness with the sweetness and the dryness is borderline sublime. These elements were always there during previous tastings but seem to really pop with a bit of age on it. It makes me want to watch The Great Muppet Caper and dance along with Kermit as he sings about "Steppin Out With A Star." So you know what? Screw writing this blog. I'm giving in to impulse. Nice job, dudes. I'll hit the tasting room with my Muppet sometime and perform a musical number for you.