In last week's Beers in Review post, I talked about a few of the beers I tried at Collusion Tap Works, a relatively new brewery in York, Pennsylvania. I have a handful more to discuss in varying levels of detail before reviewing what I thought was really the best beer of the visit.

I will note that over the course of the roughly couple of hours spent at Collusion, I tried virtually every style of beer, and sampled at least half of their two-dozen offerings. As a result, palate fatigue set in during the back half of this visit, and it came through in my impressions of a couple of the beers.

As an example, I chiefly point to their Alley Session IPA, which, at the time, I described as "just okay"-a descriptor that indicated I didn't note anything wrong with the beer, but I wasn't getting a whole lot out of it. That being said, this came after having multiple normal/non-session IPAs of varying varieties, among other styles of beer. To me, this screams "palate fatigue", so this session IPA is one I would need to give further consideration before judging. The same could be said for What Gose Around. Both of these beers need to be moved to the front of the line on the next visit to Collusion. One sample I had was Bumfuzzle, which is an English Dark Mild beer. To me, it kind of tasted like a cross of ESB and coffee. I didn't have too much, so I can't make much more of a judgment, but it seemed like a nice session option (4.2% ABV) for the stout/porter crowd.

Another which came late in the drinking session (because they initially thought they had run out) was one of two wheat IPAs made in honor of the movie Rogue One. All I could pull out of Light Side were some citrusy hop notes and a mild hop bitterness. I was disappointed I got this one so late, because its twin was one of the first beers I had there, and it was easily my favorite.

Dark Side is a BLACK wheat IPA, and we'll get to the the execution of that combination of words shortly. The beer poured a deep, deep brown, and was 7.5% ABV. The IPA had very little bitterness overall, but did a notable job of threading the needle of the compound style. The start of the tasting experience was grassy and grainy, while the end was citrusy. I also got spicy and herbal notes throughout the experience. The folks at Collusion did a worthwhile job combining the black (body, some of the more subtle flavor notes), wheat (nice grassy, grainy opening), and the IPA (citrus notes) with all three being fairly well-balanced, and no muddled cross flavors. Unfortunately, this seemed to be a limited release. But I found Dark Side to be their best-executed beer. I look forward to trying many more offerings from Collusion Tap Works.