I, like every other beer drinker get very excited when an established out-of-market brewery finally arrives at my local bottle shops. For example, I was excited when Avery Brewing Company became regularly distributed here. I counted the days until New Belgium finally took its rightful place in NY beer aisles. And I always get a little too giddy when Cigar City Brewing occasionally finds its way to Upstate NY. Recently, I was thrilled to see DuClaw Brewing Company beer for sale in my market. This excitement is solely based on their chocolate peanut butter porter Sweet Baby Jesus. I found Sweet Baby Jesus to be a very fun beer when I tried it a year ago. Because of that, I became quite interested in trying some of their other beer, especially Dirty Little Freak. Aside from its completely ridiculous name, the idea of a coconut caramel chocolate brown ale sounded way too good to pass up. So when a friend texted me and told me it was for sale at a local beer store, I dropped everything and bought it immediately. I just hoped Dirty Little Freak, and a few of the other beers I picked up from DuClaw, would live up to the hype I somehow placed on them.
DuClaw's Dirty Little Freak poured a rich brown with a khaki colored head. The aroma gave me the idea this was going to be a very fun beer. Sweet coconut, chocolate, caramel, toffee and vanilla dominated the aroma. I thought to myself, what is there not to like here? Then I tried Dirty Little Freak and the answer turned out to be everything. The first sip brought the flavor of roasted malt & dark chocolate before finishing with the flavor of coconut hand soap. Yes, this seriously reminded me of hand soap. The taste of this beer took me back to the day I dropped my first F-Bomb in front of my parents. I thought I was a pretty cool kid until they promptly washed my mouth out with soap. It was a moment I would rather forget, but the poor flavor of this beer brought that memory flooding back.
The funny thing is I do not have a lot else to say about this beer. I just could not get past the soapy flavor. I think I tasted a little bit of vanilla in there but that may have been wishful thinking. Also, the roasted malt & dark chocolate flavor I mentioned earlier gave the impression that if this was not drowned in coconut flavoring it would still be an extremely boring brown ale. To put it simply, this is bad beer. I would not recommend anyone drink it. I would also not recommend drinking a few of DuClaw's other beers. The Neon Gypsy IPA & Blood Orange Gypsy IPA were fairly poor. The Blood Orange Neon Gypsy IPA in particular tasted like the bad homebrewed IPA I made back in college. The Funk was OK but tasted slightly medicinal. In short, if it is not Sweet Baby Jesus, spend your money elsewhere.
Overall I would rate Dirty Little Freak a 1/5. I did not swear, why is my mouth getting washed out with soap?
Rating Scale:
1 - Repugnant and undrinkable
2 - Acceptable but forgettable
3 - Good, worth a purchase
4 - Excellent, a step above the norm
5 - Truly exceptional
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Thanks for reading. Sláinte!
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