Uncommon Brewers Siamese Twin Ale Review

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beer47

3 min readMay 2, 2018

Uncommon Brewers is small brewery in Santa Cruz, California who specialize in beers that are “unusual, eclectic, and undoubtedly uncommon.” They started in 2008 and were one of the first craft breweries to distribute their beer in cans. They were trailblazers ahead of their time and even their beers reflect a willingness to do things a little differently.

Siamese Twin Ale is no exception. It is a Belgian-style dubbel, brewed with whole lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, and Indian coriander. This beer comes in a 16 ounce can but my photos are a few years old and Uncommon Brewers have updated their design since then. See the photos below to see what the new can looks like compared to the old.

I first had this beer back in 2012 and very likely at one of the Jug Shop canned beer events. I hope you enjoy this review.

Appearance

This beer has a deep dark amber color that is almost opaque but has a slight glow. Despite being dark, when you hold it up to the light, you cam tell it is crystal clear. The head has an aged-parchment paper color and has foamy bubbles with average retention. The head leaves plenty of lacing on the glass.

Aroma

Although the kafir lime and lemongrass are not in your face they do add a subtle nuance to the beer. It adds a slight earth perfume-like bouquet, a subtle aroma that smooths out the banana esters and cloves. It also has a roasty quality that is reminiscent of a light to medium roast coffee. But is also has a hard candy aroma to it as well. Quite a complex aroma profile, and very inviting. Finally, it has that aroma that most dubbels have, which I describe as dusty, like an attic.

Flavor

The flavor is hot, spicy, sweet, and has only a little bitterness. The balance of this beer is definitely on the sweet-and-malty side but it has just the right amount of heat from the alcohol to balance the sweetness and even make it a bit spicy. The roasted aroma is not a prevalent in the flavor and the earthiness remains.

Mouthfeel

This beer has a little less than average carbonation and being a high gravity beer the texture is viscous. Although it is thick, it’s not like motor oil, more like a very light syrup that you might drizzle over poached pears with some cinnamon and sugar.

Overall

Overall, this is a very solid dubbel. It had been a long time since I last had this beer and my last impression was that there wasn’t enough kafir (I really enjoy the strong flavor of kafir lime leaves). What I had forgotten was that this is just an all around delicious dubbel. This time around, after searching deep for the kafir and lemongrass I discovered the elegance of it’s subtlety in this beer. It’s also a great bargain. For the price you might pay for one or two 330 ml bottles of Belgian dubbels, you get four 16 oz. cans.

Recommendation

Drink it!

Recommendations are on a 3 point scale: “drink it,” “you decide,” and “don’t drink it.”