Crystal Ship from East End Brewing

As we mentioned in a previous post, Brendan from East End Brewing gave us a half-growler from Lavery Brewing Company. The reason he had this growler in the first place is because their breweries got together for Pittsburgh Craft Beer Week and made sweet, sweet beer babies in the form of some tasty collaboration brews. Late in the week there was an event where they were serving these collaborations and the brewers were all hanging out talking to people. Unfortunately because we were going to so many awesome events that week, we were late arriving to this one and the guys from Lavery had already headed back toward Erie. They did however leave this lovely growler in the hands of Brendan and he thought we might be able to get some good use out of it. Last week we finally started doing just that by having it filled with the experimental brew from East End, Crystal Ship.

The Crystal Ship brew is actually more of a brewing accident than a brewing experiment. Their plan had been to make a batch of one of their flagship beers, BigHop, but they mixed up some malts and wound up with far too much crystal malt. You can read more about this interesting brew day over on their blog. The short version is that the regular ale yeast doesn't ferment much of the sugar from crystal malt leaving a lot of malty, sugary flavor in the final beer. Luckily they noticed the mix-up early and were able to steer it toward something drinkable. They are also using half of the batch to kick start their sour beer projects. We can't wait to get our hands on some sour beers from them, but for now we're glad to have gotten some of this one of a kind beer.

Color:

Dark brown with some red and caramel, not black, SRM ~20

ABV:

4.9%

Smell:

Sweet malts, roasted and toasted, no coffee smell, slight raisin-ish smell

Taste:

This beer was super malty and sweet. The extra crystal malts made it carmalely and sweet. It had a nice roasted profile and a great smoothness. The sweetness wasn't sticky or sugary in any way. This beer had a lingering roasted aftertaste. The aftertaste had a mild coffee hint that lingered longer than the roasted flavor. It had a lower carbonation level and was heavier in mouthfeel.

Rating:

This was a super sweet beer. I can't wait until they turn this into a sour like they are planning. It's a good beer but a little too sweet to drink on a daily basis. It was interesting and we're glad we got a half growler. If you love malty beers you need to try this soon, since it is a one off that they will never make again.

Floating Crystal Ship?
The last half of the last glass of Crystal Ship was starting to get a little flat and tasting a bit too much like malt syrup to be truly enjoyable. David had the idea that this might be a perfect base for a beer float. A couple scoops of vanilla ice cream later and this idea was a reality. He said it worked out great, the malt and roasted flavors paired well with the sweet creamy vanilla to make a nice cold, refreshing dessert drink.