New Belgium Cascara Quad

New Belgium seems to put out a lot of beers in their Lips of Faith series. We don't get them here in Philly but they are distributed close by so I'll see them sometimes during travels or just see people picking them up when they hit some stores. I'm not quite sure why they brew so many since a ton are absolutely mediocre but maybe it's fun? This bottle was sent to me by my buddy in San Diego. Cascara Quad is a quad, obviously, brewed with dates and aged on coffee cherries (which are not cherries but the, like, coating around a coffee bean).

Okay, yeah, the description didn't fill me with confidence that this is more than a weird mix of odd ingredients, but I like quads so I thought it would at be least okay. Silly me, I guess, as this beer was thoroughly mediocre. Nose was light, mostly chocolate and a bit of booze with maybe a little bit of date. Medium bodied. An odd flavor started things off, sort of like a mediocre quad awash in alcohol. Didn't get any coffee, but I don't know if coffee cherries actually have any flavor so maybe I should have expected that. As I drank more, the alcohol became more and more prevalent with the beer portion just being mediocre and getting overwhelmed. It's a shame as a good quad is awesome, this just isn't one of those. Regardless, it's still fun to try new beers, even if sometimes they are terrible. Still, you shouldn't waste even a few dollars on this, take my word for it.