Hello everyone.  For today’s craft beer review I’m going to be trying the Pretty Things Baby Tree produced by the Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project located in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

So far, I’ve been fairly happy with all of the Pretty Things beers that I’ve tried, however I’ve yet to taste the Baby Tree.  I’m kind of excited about it though because I’ve heard good things.

From the website, prettythingsbeertoday.com, I found this rather lengthy bit of information about the beverage.

Baby Tree was our first Easter beer. We LOVE Easter here at Pretty Things. Usually after the long Boston winter, we’re itching to bring out the bunnies, bonnets and yellow fluffy chicks and get on with our Springtime.

The Baby Tree is a real tree. This must be said. It dwells in Sexhow and carries cavorting baby-dolls and in season, a few pears appear. It belongs to great friends of Dann & Martha, and they chose to rescue these small plastic people from a landfill-fate by allowing them to ride in their pear-tree many years ago. And thank heavens they did.

Our Baby Tree is a very magical, traveling tree filled with waving, happy babies, some of whom may or may not resemble Mikheil Gorbachev. There may also be some discrepancy in the number of limbs, but we cannot be sure where other baby heads may be poking through the leaves so we don’t worry ourselves about it. If you want, read our poem about it.

Baby Tree beer is a Pretty Things take on the best of Abbey-style brewing from Belgium. Inspired by monastic and abbey quadruples, embellished with dark fruit flavours, not too sweet, not too heavy, it’s a springtime beer with some of the richness of late winter. It makes it perfect year round, so that’s when we offer it! You should be able to find it most months of the year, on draft or in bottle.

All in all, it’s our way of bringing a bit of Springtime to you and to us, all year round. Hooray!

Ok.  That description is a bit different.  Let’s pour it and see how it looks, smells and tastes.

The Baby Tree was presented in a 22 oz. bottle and it has an ABV of 9.0%

It poured a deep brown to deep burgundy color with a slightly off white/egg shell tinted crown.  It was sized very well and it was both smooth and slightly creamy in texture. The retention time was excellent and the lacing was exceptional.  Simply, a beautiful looking beer to say the least.

The nose released a very nice waft of sweet, dark fruits.  Plums, raisin and fig followed by a sturdy yeast component.  Hints of dark breads and spicy clove added more attributes and really kept this beer in line with the style.

The taste was more of the same.  Plums, fig and raisins.  A sweet and sugary profile co-mingled well with the breads, yeast and spicy clove.  A minor savor of alcohol was discovered, but the dark fruits continued to be the forerunner.  Nothing over the top or nothing out of the ordinary.  Just solid and true.

The mouthfeel was medium bodied.  Very smooth, chewy, dry and kind of sticky. The carbonation was spot on and a little bit of warmth was felt from the alcohol.  A substantial amount of flavor was left on the palate after each sip too.

Overall, I really liked this beer.  Like I mentioned before, it really follows the “Quad” style well.  It doesn’t try to be anything it’s not.  It has plenty of character and personality without being overly complex and the drinkability was quite good.  It’s definitely worth a try if you are looking for a good American Quadruple and I’d sure pick it up again, especially if I wasn’t able to obtain one of the more well know Belgian Quads.  So, give the Pretty Things Baby Tree a try if you happen to stumble across it.  I think that you will be pleasantly surprised as to how well it is made.  Be sure to leave a comment if you’d like and tell me your perspective of the brew.

Thanks for reading everyone.  I really appreciate it.

Until next time.  Cheers.

Score:  4.05 out of 5
Grade:  A-