Commonwealth has some solid offerings but this completely missed the mark with me. Whenever a brewery serves up an “oud bruin” my bullshit alarms instantly go off since that is often the stylistic default when something goes wrong with fermentation. Very few breweries actively set out to make that style I am convinced. Unintentional infection accusations aside, my bullshit detector goes defcom 4 when there’s a litany of fruits added after the fact. I’m not saying that is what happened here but, less scrupulous breweries have fingered my palate raw with these tactics, acetic fingernails scraping my cervix. 

Hippolyta is aged on figs and blackberries. That’s apeshit. The nose has an acetylaldehyde meets aqua net astringency to it that is coupled with fruit leather, muddled currant and ph correction chemicals for a swimming pool. The mouthfeel is extremely dry and tastes like if you mixed Still Nachte Riserva with Charles Shaw merlot. The dates are actually pretty enjoyable and present a cocoa dust and baklavah aspect in the midst of acidic gunfire. I don’t know if this will improve over time, but like an abusive therapist, I don’t need additional sessions.