Trying the Sam Adams Double Bock tonight

Pours a reddish brown color that looks a lot like much of the stained wood in my house. It has a bubbly tan head that dissipates quickly. The aroma is of first of alcohol but is then syrupy sweet, almost like maple syrup. Upon first tasting the bite of the alcohol hits first. It is shortly replaced with a strong sweetness and finishes with another bite of alcohol and a very malty aftertaste. Not very complex and the alcohol taste is too pronounced for my tastes. 2.75 's

The first time I tried this, I really loved it. After a while, they changed it quite a bit and I completely lost interest. It's anything now like it was after they messed it up way way long ago, 3.25 works for me. Big disappointment for us old farts who saw it decline.

I tried Shiner Bock last night for the first time at a friends house. I thought it was pretty good and better than your average beer such as bud or miller.



It was very rich and smooth. It had a nice tangy taste to it as it went down as well. I will drink again. I gave it and a half Not bad at all but nothing to go crazy over like I have had at the flying saucer.

This was my first review so let me know what I can do to improve next time I give one.

X

Black,

I have a bottle of the SA Double Bock waiting for a review, too. Sounds like I'll be sad. Oh well.

X,

This is a fine review, and I agree with 2.5. I did a summer research program at Texas A&M in College Station, and the only thing to do in that hole of a town during the summer was to go to this cowboy bar (I don't like country music) called the Dixie Chicken and put away beer by the liter. Other than BMC, Shiner Bock and another local brew called Ziegenbock were the only options. I wound up liking the Ziegen a little better, but having both certainly saved my sanity.

Tonight, I was planning to do a head to head of the DFH 90 and 120 min IPAs. The 90 has been the bar by which I measure all other hoppy beer, and Beers of the World just got the 120 in recently. I was aching to try it. Unfortunately, the 90 must have been a bad bottle. I didn't taste the hops at all. The fact that it was still pretty decent is a testament to its malt, but it was more like a 3 heart beer instead of a 4.5-5 heart beer. I decided to try the 120 anyway, even while fearing I might have lost my ability to taste hops. I paid $9.95 for a single 12 oz bottle. This beer weighs in at an epic 18% ABV, though, so it's somewhat understandable. If a beer that packs 4x the alcohol of regular beer costs 5x as much, I can deal with that.



The beer pours a nice reddish gold with a modest head. As I'm drinking it, it laces my glass a little, but it's largely dissipated. I noticed some sediment in the bottom of the bottle. Figuring it for the yeast, I swirled the last little bit to mix it all up before adding it to my glass. It wasn't like most yeast, though. It added an opaque swirl to an otherwise clear beer that was slow to diffuse into the rest of it. After a few min, though, it's now a consistent cloudy color.



The beer smells dominantly of evergreen trees, mostly noble fir, one of the most aromatic fir trees. There's also a little caramel sweetness in there, too. Sipping, it's largely a mix of sweetness and pine. The dominant pine flavor is pretty unusual. Most other IPAs or barley wines are citrusy or floral with their dominant flavor. The maltiness of this beer is delicious, but I'm kind of surprised it's not as overwhelming with hops and bitterness. I'm going to award this beer . There's no denying that this is a great beer. However, if I'm going to pay $10 for a single 12 oz bottle, I want it to practically make me cream my pants. The DFH World Wide Stout lives up to this. The 120 doesn't. It's one of a kind, and I'm glad I tried it, but I won't be buying it again. For the same price, I can get a 4 pack of the DFH 90, and if it tastes like what I remembered it should (not what I got tonight), then I'll get more pleasure from 4 of those than one of these, and they'll get me twice as drunk, if that's my goal. Similar idea with the Curieux, the Old Rasputin, or the Old Ruffian. You could call this the epitomy of a "balla" beer. Flashy and extravagant, but when you get down to it, you can do better for less money.

Wookie,

Let us all know what you think of the SA double bock either way. It tasted a bit like brandy to me which I'm not a fan of and in general your tastes are probably different from mine.

I'm drinking Chimay Bleue right now and man am I impressed.

It pours a cloudy amber color with a thick tan head. The aroma has a slight hint of alcohol, but is largely floral in scent. The taste hits your first with a sweetness, followed by a spicy twinge. It finishes with a good taste of roasted malt and an afterthought of alcohol. At 8% ABV it is disguised well. An excellent beer and worthy of at least 4.5 's

Chimay Blue.

What I forgot to note is that while the DFH WWS tastes of alcohol, the 120 doesn't much at all. I could drink 3 of these no problem and then curse the [censored] who gave them all to me.

Hey y'all,

Tonight I picked up 4 beers at my new favorite grocer in town (the bacon from the butcher is AWESOME).. I picked up 3 22oz's: Stone's Old Guardian Barley Wine, Anderson Valley's Brother David's Belgian Style Double Ale, and La Fin Du Monde. Also picked up a 12 oz. bottle of Old Rasputin Imperial Stout.

I started the night off with the Imperial Stout. I won't give a long review for this. I liked this a lot. I liked it more than Sam Smith's Imperial.. The roasted flavor came through a bit more. I'm not a major stout head, but I could really see myself drinking this regularly.

On to the main attraction: Stone's Old Guardian Barley Wine. The bottle says it's a limited early 2007 release. It cost me $5.00, which I think is pretty fair, considering the 11.26% ABV punch.





This is only my second trip down barley wine lane, so I wasn't sure what to expect. As you can see, it poured a darkish amber color, with a very healthy head. The nose left me guessing.. I smelled some floral hops, but it wasn't very strong or pronounced.

I let the head settle some and took a sip. First impression: resiny hops. A strong pine flavor came through. I was having trouble characterizing this one, to be honest. Aside from the resiny hops and pine flavors, I couldn't distinguish much else. A little bit of an alcohol finish, but it wasn't overwhelming and I enjoyed it.

Ultimately, I don't have much else to say for this beer. Leaves me second guessing my palate, I suppose. Looks like I have some work to do! I give it 3.75 's, though that could go up easily. I definitely enjoyed this beer a lot, but it didn't knock my socks off. It did, however, get me fairly drunk.

Pick this up if you have a chance, and share with us your thoughts.

I spent this past weekend up in Boston and took part in the BeerAdvocate Extreme Beer Festival. My girlfriend came along and we both found some really good stuff...2 ounces at a time. A very awesome experience I must say. Cliffs notes at the bottom.

The weekend started off well. I stayed at my cousin's place, since he goes to Berklee School of Music. He didn't come to the beer fest because he was a member of the press for the Boston Wine Expo, which fortuitously came to town on the same weekend. I brought a bottle of beer I had been eager to try and thought I'd share it with him: Jolly Pumpkin La Roja



I had heard this was pretty funky, and that it was. It gushed out as soon as I popped it open (Perhaps the transportation got it all riled up). The smell was totally unique, at least in my experience. It was copper/amber in color, with plenty of head, thanks to the gushing. It had a big sour smell, with apples and oak interlaced with some spice we couldn't pin down. It's apparently brewed in the Biere de Garde style, so it's not a Flemish Sour. The taste was quite interesting as well. It had sort of buttery white wine feel to it, with some caramel, spice, and the sour apples making themselves known. The finish was pretty tart with a hint of oakiness. This was certainly a mindblower, at least for me. I can see how some people really wouldn't be into this sort of thing, but I like it. 3.75

After that we grabbed a bottle from my cousin's stash. The previously rated (and loved) Allagash Curieux. I won't go too in depth, as Wookie pretty much nailed it. I didn't quite catch all the fruits that he did, but the toffee flavor and bourbon hints really made it a nice treat. I'd give it a low and a half .

And this was just the day before the fest. On Saturday, my girlfriend and I got there at exactly 1:00 and stood on a long, winding line that went around the corner of the Boston Center of the Arts. Obviously that was fun in sub-freezing temperatures. When we made it inside, we were greeted with bracelets and plastic 2 oz. sampling glasses. In typical nerd fashion, I printed a list the day before of beers that we were interested in trying. A lot of the things at the festival were brews either specially made for it or brews that you won't find in bottles. I honestly can't say I remember them all, but I'll point out some highlights and my thoughts on the whole experience.

Samuel Adams 3 Weiss Men : This one you can only find at festivals. It's a weizenbock that weighs in at 10% ABV. You would've had me completely fooled based on the style. It poured more like a hefeweizen, smelled more like a hefeweizen...you get the idea. Plenty of banana in the nose and taste. The finish tasted like bubble gum. A very smooth brew, and I had no idea it was that strong. Well done Sam Adams.

Magic Hat Thumbsucker Imperial Stout: This beer was actually retired by Magic Hat, in terms of making it in bottles. I have no idea as to its availability at the brewery. This was my favorite imperial stout of the festival. Definitely not overdone in any way, and had all the elements I like in my impies: not overly hopped, a sweet coffee and chocolate taste, and a nice bitter finish. Here's me enjoying my first swig:




Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout: This is a seasonal offering from Founders Brewing up in Michigan. According to the description in the magazine I was holding in that picture, it's made with "tons of chocolate and coffee and aged in bourbon barrels for a year." Well, based on the aroma alone, the bourbon definitely had some influence on the brew. The taste was somewhat disappointing, tasting like burnt coffee and rye with bourbon in the background. My girlfriend the coffee drinker was not a fan, though she doesn't like dark beers in general.

Here are my awards for the festival:

The "Should I applaud them or should I stay away forever" Award: Anheuser-Busch. That's right, our favorite macrobrewery came to the fest and showed off its attempts at craft beer. The only one I tried was an unnamed prototype that weighed in at a massive 17% ABV. It was basically a sugar bomb trying to hide all that alcohol. I personally respect them for giving it a go, but perhaps it's just not in the cards...

The "Awkward interaction with a brewer" Award: Kuhnhenn Brewing Company. I earlier talked about tasting what thus far for me is my favorite beer, their Raspberry Eisbock. According to their website, and the Hop Devil Grill, they're coming back to New York City on the 22nd. I tried to start some conversation about it with one of the two Kuhnhenns and he said "Umm...I'm not aware of that." So that was interesting. I'm not one to badmouth in a situation like this, given that it's really awesome for brewers to come and share all their special stuff, but it seemed like they were really disinterested and the guy I talked to was just pouring samples and sliding them back. I did end up having another sample of the eisbock though, so all is well in the world.

The "Wait, this is beer?!" Award: The Wind Cried Mari, from the Cambridge Brewing Company in Massachusetts. This is brewed in a style known as gruit. It smelled pretty much like flowers. I'm not much of a flower person, but according to other reviews of it, it smells like heather and lavender. This particular beer was aged in Chardonnay barrels. Obviously, barrel-aging is a huge trend now. Anywho, I couldn't really taste the influence of the barrels here, just flowers really. That's not to say it's bad in the least, rather really confusing. A good experience I say.

Brewer of the Festival: This one's a tie, going to Oskar Blues Brewing and Port Brewing/The Lost Abbey. For those who are unfamiliar with Oskar Blues, their claim to fame is that they can all of their beers. They're based at of Lyons, Colorado and they have a pretty extensive distribution. We talked to one of the guys pouring and he told us that even though it's less cost-efficient to can beer, it's actually way better than bottling, as it keeps beer fresher. Obviously, UV light can't penetrate the can, but also it minimizes the amount of oxygen left in the can. You can visit their website to see a video on how they came upon their can "revelation." The first beer, and their highlight in my opinion, we tried from them was their Old Chub Scotch Ale. This was my first Scotch Ale, and it was awesome. Huge malt aroma and flavor, with caramel, coffee, and some smokiness. I'll have to buy a six pack and do a more thorough tasting. I missed out on their flagship beer, Dale's Pale Ale, but i think having the Old Chub was enough to convince me to try all their stuff. I went back for another sample of the Old Chub and the guy serving me said "Once you've had your first Chub, you're never the same." My girlfriend laughed when I looked at her...

The other brewer of the fest is based in San Marcos, California. There's a lot of history that goes along with Port Brewing, which I won't delve into here, but The Lost Abbey is essentially a new brewery operation from the people who brought the Pizza Port breweries to California. My favorite beer that I tried from them is their Older Viscosity, a bourbon barrel-aged (really?) version of Pizza Port's Old Viscosity barleywine. I couldn't really sense the bourbon, but it had more of a sherry smell than anything else, along with some dark fruitiness. The taste was along the same lines, with some chocolate thrown in. We ended up talking to their manager/chef Vince, who was extremely nice and talked about how they're trying to expand to the east coast (I think they've already signed on with Massachusetts). We told him we were planning on coming to San Diego in May, and he told us to come visit them on the weekend and taste some beers with him.

Beer of the festival: Cerise Cassee, from the Cambridge Brewing Company. This is their Flemish Sour Ale, described as being "100% sour-mashed, fermented with tart cherries and our house Belgian strain." Both of us picked this as our favorite beer. It poured a beautiful red and smelled of sour cherries with some barnyard funkiness in the background, believe it or not. The taste was full of cherries and slighlty acidic. The finish was so sour, I actually puckered. What a treat. Here's me going for sample #2 and singing its praises:



Overall, we had a really great time sampling all this great stuff from great brewers. KB4Z, you should definitely check out Cambridge, if you haven't already. I think for my next beer run I'm going to have to pick up some Flemish Sours after this experience.


Cliffs Notes Tried tons of beers over the course of two days. Highlights included Jolly Pumpkin La Roja, Magic Hat Thumbsucker, Samuel Adams 3 Weiss Men, Oskar Blues Old Chub, Port Brewing Older Viscosity, and our personal favorite: Cambridge Cerise Cassee, a Flemish Sour Ale brewed with cherries. Guys from Oskar Blues and Port Brewing/The Lost Abbey were really friendly...try their stuff!!

Nice TR. I saw the Old Chubb in BotW, but I had no idea what to think of beer in a can there. I'll take your word and pick up a sixer next time. I also Scotch ales.

As for me, I was in Montreal last weekend. I didn't do an extensive beer tour because I was dancing the whole time, but I got to do something of a Tour de Boreale. I didn't try their Blonde (pale ale), but I tried the other three that were available:

Boreale Blanc: A Belgian white that was surprisingly not sweet and not especially fruity. On the plus side, though, this let the spices, esp. cloves, come through nicely. It's a little different from the fruitier whites like Allagash and Hoegaarden, but it was good. If you think Belgian whites are a little too sweet for you, but you're willing to give them another go, this is one to try. and a half .

Boreale Noire: A stout. It had a nice smokiness to it along with some hops. It was a little on the watery side other than a creamy (presumably nitrogen) head. The complexity was nice, but the malt was lacking. and a half .

Boreale Rousse: A red ale, and a lackluster one. It didn't have much in the way of hops, and the malt was only decent. I wouldn't bother ordering this one again, esp. if the others were available. .

I heard good things about the Griffin red ale, but I didn't get to try it myself. Really, I think should be able to do better than these beers given the reputation for microbrews in Montreal, but touring all the brewpubs was just not on the itinerary. I'll just have to go back .

I'm going to do a couple (few?) beer reviews tonight. The first is from Middle Ages - The Duke. BotW called this a porter, but the side of the bottle says it's something like a Scotch ale and a porter blend, so maybe something like a hopped Scotch ale? I don't know what to make of it. I paid $1.85 for a 12 oz bottle.

I was going to post pics, but I get lazy when the beer sucks. It pours on the lighter side of porters, but not as bad as the Yuengling. It doesn't have much of an aroma, maybe malts with a little woodiness. It doesn't taste like much. The malt is kinda empty, and the hops are boring. It tastes more like a poor porter than anything resembling a Scotch ale. At least it's better than the Yuengling, and it's cheap, but this is not a highlight of the Middle Ages brewery. .

Wookie,
I haven't had the Old Chubb, but Dale's Pale Ale is very good. A great beer to take camping or to the park or anywhere else bottles aren't allowed.

And now, after many information & recommendation posts in this thread, my first review. Be gentle as I've never really done a review like this before. (Well, I have helped judge the AZ state fair homebrew contest, but I had a couple experienced judges to help me out.)

The beer: Pizza Port Double Overhead Abbey Ale
Brewed by Pizza Port Solana Beach way back in 2004. I purchased this 750ml bottle (#231) around Christmas time 2004. ABV 6.5%

Some background unrelated to beer: I had a friend who travelled to Thailand in Jan 2005 to help with the tsunami relief. Since he's a big fan of Belgians, I had decided to save this bottle to share when he returned after a year or so. When he did return, he relocated to Seattle. It's been sitting in the back of the beer fridge since then.

The beer pours a deep orange color (almost red) with some head. The head doesn't last long and there is some lacing. Not a lot of aroma, some sweetness and fruity esthers. The body is very crisp & clean, similar to biting into a good granny smith apple. There is only a slight hint of apple flavor though. As with the aroma, there's some sweetness & fruity yeast flavor. No spicyness that you can find is some Belgians. Overall, this is a very well balanced beer. Nothing one ingredient really stands out above the others and they compliment each other perfectly. But still, it seems like this could have been a better beer. All in all, I'll give it 3.75.

Endnote: I did a search for this on Beer Advocate and evidently this was a one off beer. [cry] Maybe I'll try shooting an email off to the brewer Tomme Arthur for a homebrew recipe. I wish I would have bought more. Sorry for the wordy review, but I'm writing this as I finish off the bottle so I'm nice & relaxed. My next review (whenever I get around to drinking it as it's another 750ml 7% beer) will be Russian River's Damnation golden ale.

For my second review, I cracked open a bottle of Chimay red. I paid $5.29 for a 11.2 oz bottle of 7% beer. This one is apparently in the trappist style.



The beer pours a nice reddish brown with a good head, too. There was a little yeast and sediment in the bottom that I swirled into the glass.



The beer smells mostly of cherries and the malt, and that's what dominates the flavor. The cherry flavor isn't like cough syrup. It's more like sour cherries. This beer is pretty sweet and mildly sour. Unfortunately, other than the sweetness, there isn't a whole lot in the finish that lingers. This is a good beer, but for this price, I expect to be blown away. I was with the Chimay blue, but I'm not with the red. I'll give this beer and a half . This is a good beer, but there's no way it's worth this premium price. There are better trappists out there.

Well, I decided to round out the Tour de Chimay with a bottle of the Chimay White. This is their Tripel. I again paid $5.29, but this one weighs in at 8%.



This beer is a little lighter in color than the La Fin Du Monde, and it doesn't have as much head. There was quite a bit of sediment in the bottom of this beer.



The beer smells of peach, caramel, and a little apple and pear. The spice scent isn't as pronounced. The beer tastes sweet, a little sour, and the fruit comes through mildly. There's a little of the yeasty malt flavor that's common to all tripels, but it's not as strong as in the LFDM. There isn't much spice, either. Again, I'd say that this is a good, but underwhelming and overpriced beer. I'm going to give it . If I saw someone in Beers of the World considering buying this, I'd definitely steer them away. Unibroue's La Fin Du Monde is better, and it's cheaper.

JP,

Well, it looks like I have an undue association between cans and crappy beer. Actually, I think that association is typically sound, but I should be willing to make exceptions. I will definitely pick up one or both of these the next time I'm out shopping. That might be a while, though, since I still have about 2.5 cases waiting to be consumed and reviewed .

As for your review, that's certainly the sort of review that will cut it in this thread. I'm sad I won't be able to try that beer, but I look forward to reading more from you. If you (or anyone following this thread, really) don't think your review will be up to snuff, well, you're probably wrong. If you're still worried, though, one thing to try that I love is a head-to-head comparison of similar beers. Even if you don't think your palette is sophisticated enough to distinguish various flavors or that you can come up with the right language or the like, you can at least tell me which beer you liked better, and that's always good.

Tonight's review features Anderson Valley's Brother David's Double Abbey Style Ale. I picked it up at my local grocer, I think for $5.



It's the one on the left.



I poured the beer into a wine glass, because I felt like it. The deer poured a dark mahogany.. almost opaque in the wine glass.

The nose smelt of sweet fruitiness along with some malt. I had a hard time distinguishing the fruit... Anderson's site (www.avbc.com) states apricots, raisins, and figs.. I certainly agree with the apricots.

The taste, however, was slightly different animal. This is the first beer I've had where the nose and taste were quite different. The flavor was rich with malt and had a smoky, roasted undertone. Wow! The fruitiness did come in some, but it was just a compliment to the malts. It finished nice and dry. Very tasty.

I was very impressed with this beer and it's inspired me to look for some more Belgian Doubles (dubbel, I think). I'll definitely be picking up the Triple by this brewery, too. Sometime in the spring I think I'm going to head up north and see if I can go on a brew tour of this place. I've yet to have a beer there I didn't enjoy, ranging from this Belgian offering, to IPAs, Ambers, and Stouts.

I've got a few quick reviews tonight, no pics.

First up is Brooklyn's Lager. The Brooklyn Lager beer tap has been a fixture at my favorite bar for the longest time now, but I've never bothered with it since I figured it was just another boring American pale lager. Well, tonight we had a casual dinner seminar talk, and you can either get a Coke which is provided by the department, or a beer for a $1 "donation." It was Brooklyn Lager or Pislner Urquell tonight, and the heard good things in here about the Brooklyn made me curious. I don't have any info about how it pours because I was drinking from the bottle. The taste, though, is much better than I expected. It tastes like an IPA, really. The hops are surprisingly bold, with a good mix of floral, citrus, and bitter flavors. The bitterness isn't as overpowering as some IPAs, though. The malt is more like an IPA or an APA than a crappy lager. When I checked the bottle, I was surprised to see that this beer was 5.2% ABV. And this is cheap beer! I don't know how much BotW charges for it exactly, but it's not more than the Brooklyn Brown, which is $1.85/12 oz. You should be able to find this for $6-7 for a sixer in the grocery store. I'm going to give it . Well done again, Brooklyn.

The next series of beers are somewhat thematic from my Super Bowl party. I've been meaning to review them, but I've been putting it off. They weren't all that great, so my enthusiasm was low.

First up are two Belgian ales from River Horse Brewing, which is in NJ and which I got for Colts fans (horse-themed beer is hard to find, and I can't get anything from IL or IN proper). I paid $16.99 for a 12 pack containing 6 each of their Tripel and their Belgian Winter Ale. Both beers are quite strong, 10% ABV and 8% ABV, respectively, and they're both pretty similar in their mediocrity, too. They both contain the ideas of good beer, but the flavor falls short. The tripel has some of the fruitiness of the good tripels, but the malt and spice are lacking, and none of the flavors really linger. The winter ale, which is a darker ale and a little less sweet, also misses the mark. There are some hints of hops and spice, but the malt is kinda empty compared to the high standard of Belgian beer. On the plus side, this 12 pack will get you a fair bit drunker than a case of any BMC lite, and it tastes much better. I award each beer and a half .

For my Bear beer, I settled on Black Bear Porter, from the Stone Coast brewery. There's not a whole lot to say about this one other than the fact that it's a pretty ho-hum porter with the flavors you expect, but nothing that's all that rich. I again award it and a half .

Just a note, an actual buttery taste in your beer is considered a fault in every BJCP category, I'm pretty sure, and is usually caused by too much DMS in the beer. That's a problem much, much more common to homebrewers than commercial outfits.

Also, a taste described as wet cardboard is usually attributed to oxidization, just fyi.

Butter or butterscotch flavor is actually caused by too much diacetyl. DMS (dimethyl sulfides) will give a cooked corn flavor. For a good example of DMS, drink a Rolling Rock.

Yeah I've heard of that before. To be honest, I'm not really sure if it was much of a buttery taste, rather than just a similar feel to white wine. It could just be the batch that's off, or inaccurate taste buds on my part.

I've got another cheap beer to review tonight, Saranac's Belgian ale. It ran me just $1.59 for a 12 oz, which I think is as cheap as they come at Beers of the World. Saranac has had some decent brews, though, and I was curious how much Belgian I could get on the cheap. They say on the bottle that this is brewed in the trappist style, so we'll see what their interpretation is. The beer pours a clear (i.e., yeast-less) orange-ish color. There isn't much head, and it dissipates pretty quickly. It smells, well, not like a trappist. It doesn't have the earthy or fruity tones. It smells more like a tripel, spicy and malty. It tastes like a tripel, too. It's moderately sweet, not as sweet as some, and it's not as fruity. The spices, though, are quite nice. Cloves and cinnamon come through well. The malt is decent, and in spite of presumably filtering the beer, there's still some of the yeasty flavor, too. I'd say this is a modest step up in quality from Blue Moon, although they're not technically the same variety of beer. I'll file this next to the JW Dundee's porter as surprisingly good cheep beer. I give it . If someone's curious about Belgian beer but doesn't want to blow $10+ on a sixer of something they might not like, this would be a good beer to pick up.

Sam Smiths Outmeal stout is a great beer.

Continuing the trend of cheap beer, tonight I'll review Sam Adam's Double Bock. I think I paid $1.85 for this one, which means it'd run you $6-$8 per sixer, depending on where you shop. I'm not sure exactly of its ABV, but it tasted on the stronger side, maybe 7%. The beer pours a nice medium brown, but without much head at all. It smells malty and slightly of alcohol, and that's pretty much the flavor, too. It's not as earthy as some bocks, but at first glance, this would be a decent option for someone who likes brown ales. The problem is the sweetness. It's very sweet, and while I didn't really mind at first, it really started grating on me at the end. I was going to give this beer a 2.5 rating, but I just can't for a beer I had trouble finishing. I give this beer and a half .

As promised, here's my review of Russian River's Damnation golden ale.

My parents got me some bottles of this for Christmas 2005 (I love my family, this year my sister got me a pound each of four varieties of hops, which will probably last me a couple years). Damnation is a 750ml bottle conditioned 7%, 25 IBU Belgian style golden ale. A cool thing that Russian River does is mark which batch of a particular bottling a bottle is. This bottle was from batch 6.

It pours with a beautiful golden yellow. If this were the stuff that made yellow snow I'd have no problem eating all I could . Nice head, though it doesn't last long. Good lacing throughout the beer.

It smells very fruity with pears as the dominant aroma. There's some banana in the background. There's also a nice yeastiness to it.

To me the flavor is lacking. There's a bit of fruityness but not what the aroma leads you to believe. There is a nice spicy flavor to it. The body finishes a little dry.

Overall, I'd give this . I'm more partial to the sweetness of dubels & tripels so that affected the rating. If I were to judge this strictly by style it would rate higher.

After checking RR's bottle log on their web site, Batch 6 was brewed on 7/17/05 & bottled on 8/12/05. I think I need to find a bottle of a different batch. They state they couldn't use their house yeast for bottle conditioning which resulted in a thinner body than normal. Another cool thing they do on their labels & mark them how long you can age the beer. Damnation can be aged for up to 3 year.

If you're interested in trying it out, you can order bottles on line. $7.50 for the bottle I had. They also have Supplication available. I have a bottle of this as well which I'll probably won't try for a while. I wish they bottled Pliney the Elder.
http://www.russianriverbrewing.com/Merch...ategory_Code=BB

Up next (in a week or so): Supposedly the rarest beer in the UK, Thomas Hardy's Ale (2004 vintage).

To all the lurkers following this thread: don't worry about how it will turn out, post your reviews. I've been reading this thread since TLDR was the Mod Forum flavor of the month & always thought, "I should do a review" of whatever I was drinking then or had in the frige. I never posted because I wasn't sure what to write. Get a piece of paper & a pen & write down your impressions as you drink. Tell what you like & what you don't. If it helps, have one or two before you post. I would have done that, but since the two reviews I've done were both wine bottle sized & 8% & 7% more than one bottle wasn't necessary. And if I did have more than one bottle I'd be asleep & unable to post.