Review: Farmery Iced Tea Ale

A few months ago Farmery Estate Brewery announced that they tweaked the recipes of their fruit and tea-flavoured beers. I realized then that I've never reviewed this product, Iced Tea Ale (formerly Hard Iced Tea). The Iced Tea Ale tops out 4.1% ABV and 5 IBU

Appearance: At first it has a very carbonated appearance to it, lots of off-white head to it and lots of carbonation in the body but it calms down rather quickly, leaving behind a light amount of carbonation on the top of the beer and good amount of carbonation in the body. The body itself has a clear amber ale sort of presence to it.

Aroma: The first thing I get from this is the malt, the malt is by far much more dominant than anything else in the beer.. I don't know how to describe it but if you've had their Light Lager or Premium Lager recently, it has that exact presence and it's something that's wayyyy too aggressive for just about any style, so how do I describe it? A very nutty and sweet malt presence to it that's just... aggressive. There's a bit of a leafy hop presence to it, a good deal of sugar and a light green tea presence to it.

Taste: Like the aroma, the malt tops out everything else, giving off a nutty and sweet profile to it. It's very, very sweet with almost a syrupy-like presence to it. Lots of sugar, moderate tea presence (mostly green tea), aftertaste of sugar with a bit of a syrupy mouthfeel to it. Moderately bitter.

Overall Thoughts: Definitely needs a lot of tweaking to it, I think I preferred the old Hard Iced Tea but I haven't had it in a while so it's hard to compare. The malt is too aggressive and the beer itself is too syrupy and a bit tooooo sweet for me. When I'm thinking of a tea-themed beer, what I want is Mill Street's old Lemon Tea Ale.