Multiple Beer Review: Intergalactic Deals (Levante Brewing), Tickle Parts (Levante Brewing), Wasted Away Again (Tattered Flag), Onyx (Levante Brewing), and Five Sided Puzzle Palace (Levante Brewing)

Happy #NationalBeerLovers day. What are all of you celebrating with? After a long day at work where I got shuffled all over the place (three card poker, poker room, blackjack, pit 2, pit 6, pit 4) and getting my girls from my parents and home, I got to squeeze out some time to stop by Tattered Flag at the end of the day. Catch the tail end of their Levante and Tattered Flag day and their can release.

Tattered Flag recently did a big collaboration project with Levante Brewing Co. Traveling to their facility with their crew and the Levante Brewing crew traveling to their facility. They produced a beer at each one. Cans and excellent beers were the result. September 7th was the release of these cans out into the wild for consumption and they definitely didn’t disappoint. In conjunction with the brewery, Tattered Flag also hooked up with the Hershey Biergarten, The Midtown Tavern (at Midtown Cinema), and sip @ soma to release the cans.

The collaboration beer created together at Levante’s facility was the decadent blood orange chocolate stout – Five-Sided Puzzle Palace. A 12% dessert stout. Very rich, very smooth, very boozy, very chocolate and blood orange flavored.

The beer created at Tattered Flag Brewery was Wasted Away Again, a key lime pie sour. This collaboration between Tattered Flag Brewery and Levante Brewing Company tapped right into how Tattered Flag has been killing the sour game and is another fantastic sour created by them (added to some recent fantastic sours like Prepare to Be Flabbergasted, Should’ve Put Him in Custardy, Making Love at Midnight [sour version], Should’ve Got a Warrant, and many others).

Tattered Flag always has an impressive can selection to choose from for in-house and to go. Some recent releases are : the original Makin’ Love at Midnight, a sour version of Makin’ Love at Midnight, Prepare to be Flabbergasted (look for reviews of this and the sour Makin’ Love soon on here), Groundhops Day, a re-release of Because I Was Inverted (Mango), as well as still some cans available of O’Dusseldorf Rules, Tattered Abomination, and all of their staples like TMI IPA, Blue Raider Kolsch, and Teutonic Knight Hefeweizen.

Enough about their can releases and event of the day and lets tackle this flight I ordered up:

First up for me was Intergalactic Deals. Went heavy on this flight on Levante Brewing namely due to their scarcity in the area. Levante Brewing Company is a microbrewery from West Chester, PA. They have been pumping out some incredible beers, particularly NE IPAs, Milkshake IPAs, and some fantastic stouts and sours of their own. They are typically a staple at most beer fests in the area (most recently saw them at Lancaster Craft Beerfest).

Beer: Intergalactic Deals
Brewery: Levante Brewing Company
Style: IPA – Milkshake
ABV: 8%
IBU: 39
Untappd Write-Up: Intergalactic Deals is a Vanilla Shake DIPA with a universal taste appeal. A fleet of hoppiness derives from El Dorado, Mosaic, Amarillo, and Centennial hops, while vanilla sweetness shines over the horizon. Local wildflower honey melds with heaps of Madagascar vanilla and lactose for a sweet steal of an Intergalactic Deal.

This definitely has a ‘universal taste appeal’. Its a sweet smooth IPA Milkshake. The aroma has a vanilla tint to it and there is a good hop aroma that lofts up into the air from it.

Appearance is your normal NEIPA/Milkshake IPA. Thick juicy IPA. Orange and opaque and a bit unfiltered. Light ring of foam at the top (just a taster glass).

Taste is fantastic. First sip to the last on this one. Smooth, and easy to drink. No hop bitterness, no hop burn, just the smoothness from the vanilla and lactose. There is a bit of a mango-fruitness to it that couples with the lactose and vanilla to give it a great taste. Most likely the mosaic hops and amarillo hops. The honey with the lactose and vanilla is what gives it that super smoothness and super smooth taste.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.13 (as of 9.7.19)

Tickle Parts has become one of Levante Brewing’s best known beers, and for good reasons, it is a fantastic brew. So lets get down to it and enjoy this tasty offering.

Beer: Tickle Parts
Brewery: Levante Brewing Company
Style: IPA – New England
ABV: 7.1%
IBU: 47
Untappd Write-Up: Tickle Parts is an exceptionally dry-hopped New England IPA, with low bitterness, rising hop aroma and a feathery-soft mouthfeel. Anticipate chunks of pineapple and tender clementine juices on the palette, while your nostrils are gently tickled with the aroma of thawing sorbet and other fruit juices.

This is definitely an exceptional beer. Exceptionally dry hopped one might even say….. But yes, it is a great beer. It has a very hoppy fruity citrusy aroma. It looks beautiful, it smells beautiful, and it tastes… beautifully.

It has a soft orange glowing look to it. Not quite the dark unfiltered look that Intergalactic Deals had, this has a softer, almost orange juice look to it with none of the floaters dancing about. Light ring of head in the taster class.

Very soft and smooth beer. Lays on your tongue nicely and easily and is just fantastically smooth. There is more of a citrus and fruit to this, whereas Intergalactic had more of a vanilla taste with mango background, this has all of the fruity hops bouncing around right away. Tastes of all of the citrus fruits, orange, clementine, tangerine, apricot, and more fight for equal rights in your mouth (not for the right to party though sadly). This is just an easy smooth wonderful beer all around.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.11 (as of 9.7.19)

I’m not a foody, I’ve stated this several times here on the blog, and I’m not a pie person either (…jokes aside), but this is exactly as a key lime pie tastes. Well, the one slice I once had, against my will, once when I was 18 on a date. But anyway, yea, this is a liquid version of a key lime pie, and therefore it is superior to key lime pies. Plus – alcohol.

Beer: Wasted Away Again
Brewery: Tattered Flag
Style: Sour – Fruited
ABV: 7%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: Hang on to summer one last time and get wasted away again with our key lime pie sour ale! A collaborative effort with Levante. A kettle sour ale with tons of key lime with a touch of coconut and graham crackers. This beer will transport you down to key west for one last gasp of summer!

Aroma is key lime pie. Pretty much every part of this review will be like a dictionary : “See Key Lime Pie.” Because it is spot on to the smells, ingredients, and taste of a key lime pie. They nailed the flavors, the aromas, and its spot on for how each of the ingredients should be tasting.

Appearance is light sour, the off-orange/off-yellow/off-“normal” beer coloring, unfiltered, with a slight tint and hue of amberish/goldenish/pinkish to it. Not quite sure how to describe the coloring, but for those who are familiar with sours you can spot it immediately and go “yep, thats a sour”. I’m sure someone far more educated can point out its exact hue on the spectrum, and perhaps some day when I’m better with the BJCP and all that, I’ll be able to provide better in-depth analysis on the color, but for right now, I’ll just say it looks like a normal kettle sour, and thats good.

Taste is great. Tart, lime, coconut, graham. Not full on sour to the point of puckering up, but the right amount of tartness that makes it refreshing, enjoyable, and tasty. This is a great end to summer beer with a nice sitting out on the beach or by the pool, relaxing, enjoying a beer while watching kids play (or scoping out ….the sand castles along the waterfront).

My Untappd Rating: ****.50
Global Untappd Rating: (No Global Average Rating as of 9.7.19, will update later when one becomes available.)

Moving onto the darker beers now…

I love stouts and I love dark beers, but oatmeal stouts, have always been a bit hit or miss with me. Like its teetering on an edge that can go either way. This one, kind of hangs in the middle without teetering to either side and stays poised on the tip.

Beer: Onyx
Brewery: Levante Brewing Company
Style: Stout – Oatmeal
ABV: 6.7%
IBU: 47
Untappd Write-Up: Darkness awakens in this traditional Oatmeal Stout. The maltbase is a certain chewy type of thick, courtesy of hefty oat additions in the mash. Layers of roasty and toasty specialty malts taste like window shopping with your nose: melting dark chocolate, twice-baked biscotti, and cold brewed dark-roast. *Contains Lactose*

Appearance is a dark chocolate black, slight light brown foamy head. Dark in appearance and dark complexion.

Aroma is a whiff of oatmeal, heady, roasty, malty, going a bit towards the smoked smell in its malt, perhaps just the roasty and toasty – ness – of the malts used. There is a bready smell with the oatmeal but its hard to distinguish it from the oatmeal.

It has a nice genuine roasty and toasty taste, a bit smoked in some way. It is heavy bready. Surprised to read in the description that there is lactose in this as its not really smooth, a bit bitter due to the roasted malts, so the lactose doesn’t really dampen or smooth that out at all.

There is a slight lingering aftertaste to this that while not completely unpleasant, is a bit ‘off’. I don’t think its a huge detraction from the beer, but I’m never really a fan of an aftertaste that disagrees with me because of how it lingers and stays.

My Untappd Rating: ***.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.88

Now going into the full deep dark end, we have Five-Sided Puzzle Palace, the collaboration between Levante Brewing Company and Tattered Flag Brewing.

Beer: Five-Sided Puzzle Palace
Brewery: Levante Brewing Company
Style: Stout – Imperial / Double
ABV: 12%
IBU: 59
Untappd Write-Up: A chocolate-covered-orange stout brewed in collaboration with Tattered Flag. This luscious dessert stout is thicker than brownie batter, and for a truly unique spin, we squeezed bushels of oranges into the batch. For chocolate, we stayed local to Harrisburg and Tattered Flag by using Hershey’s Cocoa Powder. Dessert is served. *Contains Lactose*.

This is completely a dessert stout, double-style, rich, heavy, decadent, delicious. Reminiscent of the orange chocolate candies typically given out at Easter, this is practically a liquid version of that, but with blood oranges rather than regular oranges.

Appearance is jet fuel black. Deep dark ocean black. Light ring of foam to the head at the top that is darker hued as well.

Aroma is chocolate straight through with some of the blood orange sneaking out. But very very very chocolate heavy smell. You can smell the heavyness of the beer and it gives off just a deep dark wonderful aroma.

From first sip you get the chocolate, you get the blood orange, and you get a smacking of the boozyness of this. You feel that 12% right up front and center. The chocolate is rich, smooth, decadent, and makes this feel like a true dessert style stout. The blood orange compliments it perfectly and gives the beer some balance to it, so its not just a complete boozy chocolate bomb in your mouth. The two flavors work in great tandem.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.94 (as of 9.7.19)

Fantastic beers all around, from both Levante Brewing Company and Tattered Flag Brewing. Both collaborations were great, and would love to see more work from the two of them together. Make sure to pick up some cans of Five-Sided Puzzle Palace and Wasted Away Again, both are terrific, and will hold up for a while, but most likely will sell out soon and quickly.

Cheers everyone, and since its the start of football season, I’ll give a shout of ‘WHO DEY’ and say Go Bengals ….. go 0-16, and lets get that first round draft pick!

-B. Kline