Beer Review: Fruit Monster (Great Notion Brewing)
Continuing the beers from the stream; I get to the third of the series, and I present to you the fabled FRUIT MONSTER of Great Notion Brewing. Firstly…. let me say, finally, I’ve gotten to try Great Notion Brewing, and they absolutely live up to all of the hype their beers have received. I got a few of their beers from Breski’s in a mix-a-six, and I’ll be reviewing the others as well at some point. But first I wanted to do the beers I had on the stream as part of a series. You can check out the streaming page at Knights of Nostalgia. I’ll put a list of the beers from the stream that I did beer reviews of at the end of this article. Its a series of reviews, just like my Tree House beers I reviewed as a series. Make sure to check out the others.
Look at that picture above, doesn’t that look like pure juice? Like orange juice? Like a good breakfast OJ to get the day going? Well, its not OJ, and its not a New England IPA, but it is pure straight juice, and its straight fire.
This is part of the Great Notion’s Tart Ale series, each batch being a different blend of fruits. This particular one (in the above review) was Mango, Guava, and Passionfruit. The Untappd description reads that its Passionfruit and Pineapple, but that was for a different batch, and they don’t have a unique beer check-in for each batch. So the description reads off a bit different than the beer itself; but its a simple fix – where it says “pineapple and passionfruit” just think “mango, guava, passionfruit”. Problem solved.
Beer: Fruit Monster
Brewery: Great Notion Brewing
Style: Sour – Fruited
ABV: 6%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: The first in our new tart ale series, Fruit Monster! Each batch will have a unique blend of tropical fruits and milk sugar, and the first one has a scary amount of pineapple and passion fruit. Drink up before the monster gets it all!
Appearance is like your morning juice with a nice breakfast. Not quite like the hazy juice of New England IPAs, this looks more like your pineapple or slicker clearer juices. Its still not transparent and is mostly opaque, but it not as hazy or turbid and it doesn’t have any sediment or floaters in it. It had a thin (very thin) small head when poured that quickly evaporated. Good carbonation. Beautiful orange color, bright, and all around just appealing.
The nose for this is just as described and offered. Mango, guava, passionfruit. Very fruity, in a heady mixture. It all hits together at the same time in the same way and makes one giant blend of an aroma. You can really smell the three fruits; but I think the mango and guava is probably the two that come through the most, hard to say though with just how well it all blends together.
Now we get to whats always my favorite part of the review…. because its my favorite part of beer; and that’s drinking it! Just like its appearance would make you think, this is pure juice. And just like its aroma would make you think, this is pure fruity. So… guess what? Its pure fruity juice! This is completely, absolutely, ridiculously, incredibly… delicious. As the ‘cool kids’ on the interweb would say, “its pure fire”. (See, I’m still hip and with it. I can get jiggy with it too.) There is a very slight tartness to this, but its refined and mostly negligible; what you are primarily getting is a fruity, juicy, drinkable and crushable beer. I think I downed this in no time, savoring the first sip and the last, and draining the rest of it far quicker than I should have. (Its so good its hard to savor it.) The fruits do blend in the tasting just like they did in the aroma. You get the notes of the mango, guava, and passionfruit, very heavily. Probably mostly mango and mostly guava with the passionfruit being more subtle. Guava can be an interesting flavor to me, its very hit or miss, in this though, I think its definitely a hit, most likely because of how its used in combination with the mango and passionfruit. I am a huge fan of mango in beer and this nails it completely and perfectly. Providing such a deep tasty mango flavor that combines really well with the guava and the passionfruit flavors and makes a really nice blend. This is 6% so its certainly not heavy or boozy or too powerful, and its very crushable, a four pack of this would go down waaaaaaaaay too easily. I think 5-7.5% is the perfect range for beers if you are sitting down and drinking; don’t get me wrong, I love the deep heavy boozy barleywines and stouts (as many faithful readers of the blog can attest to), but for hanging out with friends, drinking, playing video games, etc, a good 5-7.5% beer is perfect. You can have multiples, its not too boozy, too heavy, and sits well. Just like this does. Perfect for playing Friday the 13th and being a camp counselor running away from Jason Voorhees. Also, just a perfect beer, period, in general, flat out. Make sure you find yourself some of this and give it a try, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed at all.
My Untappd Rating: ****.75
Global Untappd Rating: 4.11 (as of 10.29.20)
This is the third of the four beer series from last week’s streaming session; when me and Drew played Friday the 13th on Knights of Nostalgia. You can check in with us to see what we’re drinking, and you can watch Drew on there a lot, usually drinking craft beer and / or bourbon or scotch.
Beers:
- Beer Review: Pixels (Seminar Brewing)
- Beer Review: Isolation Anniversary Beer (Aslin Beer Company)
- Beer Review: Fruit Monster (Great Notion Brewing)
- Beer Review: Villeinage (Elder Pine Brewing and Blending)
So be sure to check out Villeinage soon. Probably sometime in the next day or two.
You can also see some of our other beer reviews here:
- Beer Review: Dreams of Orgonon (Human Robot)
- Beer Review: Unicorns Stomping on Lanternflies (Saucony Creek Brewing Co)
- Beer Review: Griddle (Funk Brewing Company)
- Beer Review: Out of Order: Blue Milk (RAR Brewing)
- Beer Review: Up the Creek Extreme Ale (Thomas Creek Brewery)
- Beer Review: Hershey’s Chocolate Porter (Yuengling Brewery)
- Beer Review: Dropout (Rubber Soul Brewing)
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Tonight I will be joining Drew again on Knights of Nostalgia for another stream, this time we’ll also be joined by Rory. So make sure to see the three of us play some video games and drink craft beer and joke around.
Cheers!
-B. Kline
