Iron Hill Ring of Fire

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 9

At the SSSSLT, an exciting bottle opening by the generous GMCC2181, who tamed the cork beautifully but just couldn't contain the volcanic spewing of bubbles that transpired for about ten minutes (good thing he didn't ship this and saved it for SL!). Obvoiusly, poured with a huge head, about 90% of the glass, big bubbles too, foamy, tannish in color, longstanding retention (although after 10mins or so, the bottle poured reasonably). Body of the beer was brown in color, much like their standard and excellent pig iron porter. The aroma was normal roasty chocolate, good stuff, no tabasco yet though, maybe some tingling going on in the nostrils. The flavor was excellent, the best pepper type beer I've had, roasty chocolate notes, but a nice complementary tabasco richness that added some heat to the sips (but not ridiculously, as I'm not into suicide hot wings, etc...) around the whole mouth and tongue. In addition to the heat, the mouthfeel obviously was lively with carbonation tooo. Gabe, thanks for the opportunity on this one, a very fun experience, and one which has me no longer wondering why folks mix peppers in beers.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 7

Shared at the first, semi-annual Ratebeer-Tucson tasting!
The cork just absolutely explodes as soon as I pull off the cage, it then proceeds to gush all over the place as I lose a couple ounces to the table. I end up with five-fingers of head in my 25cl tulip glass that is a dark tan color. The beer is a dark brown, approaching black color. Very toasty smelling with lots of smooth roast character thrown in to the mix. This really has a huge malt aroma to it with notes of cocoa, darkly toasted bread crust and a roast character that is almost smoky.

Sweet malt flavors hit my tongue up front, though it gets a bit thin feeling & acidic towards the finish. The chile then becomes noticeable in the finish as a light warm glow that sticks to the palate. This is quite roasted, with lots of toasted grain flavors, notes of coffee and almost a touch of salty peat flavors. The chile heat gets more warming the more I drink this beer, even migrating to my lips after a bit; the heat never get hot though. This seems a bit thin at first, but does actually have some texture and heft to it. The lightness that was noticed at first seems to have been accentuated / driven by the excessive carbonation.

This is nice, perhaps a bit of a novelty beer, but I like that dimension that the warming chile adds to the deep, roast malt character.