Gimmick beers are a fickle thing—tough to pull off and limited in their year-round relevance. Even if a brewery somehow engineers some kind of amazing flavor breakthrough and creates, say, a delicious lo mein beer perfectly suited to the Chinese New Year … just how applicable is it going to be in the months that follow?
Tiny Atlanta brewer Second Self was presumably well aware of this when they began designing a red velvet cake-inspired beer for Valentine’s Day, Bleeding Heart, although they clearly have plans for it as a launching pad. With an upcoming series that includes “Old Heart,” “Bitter Heart” (extra cocoa) and Wild Heart (a soured version), that’s a clear commitment of resources and confidence in what they’ve created. And after tasting what they’ve created, we’re pleased—although not entirely convinced of the accuracy of the “red velvet” label. In reality, we enjoyed the Bleeding Heart that we sampled at the Paste office, but perhaps not quite in the way intended.
The beer pours an appropriately pretty reddish hue, with a base that owner Jason Santamaria explained was essentially a classic American amber ale, which was then treated with cacao nibs and Madagascar vanilla beans. It almost does smell a little bit “cakey,” with light vanilla that one might not immediately note if you didn’t know it was a featured component. Cocoa, on the other hand, is more difficult to pick up, but there’s another pleasant spice note working—almost a bit of gingerbread cookie.