Name: Golden Tusk
Brewery: Pink Elephant
Style: ESB
ABV: 7.1%
Source: New World
It’s been about 10 months since I last drank a Pink Elephant beer, and in that time the brewery has remained a complete mystery to me. I’ve never read a Tweet from or about them, never seen a Pink Elephant beer launch party on Facebook, and never heard the brewer’s name dropped in beer geek gossip. This, coupled with their 90′s comic sans website, make them kind of endearing to me.
They seem to make quite interesting beer, too. The Trumpet and in particular the Pink’s Peculiar (what a mouthful) were both wonderfully weird, and gave me the impression that the brewer could be a bit of a lone ranger. Rather than making fashionable IPAs and Tweeting about it, I imagine the brewer making these old-fashioned concoctions in a dark basement while chewing aniseed balls and dreaming of England.
The Golden Tusk had quite a nice aroma – toffee, ripe fruit and a touch of alcohol, and in the mouth it tasted rich and malty at first with a short resinous hop finish. It was quite nice, but had a harsh edge which reminded me that it if I drank the whole thing I’d probably end up with a headache. Sometimes I wish more beers would be so obvious with their warning signs…
