Adam
(has 11 batches)

Bottle from a trade. Shared @ HOTD tasting. Dark brown, thin layer of foam. Soft carbonation. Aroma of dark fruit with a subtle peaty tang. Sweet with light bitter finish. We opened a batch 74 and a batch 85. The 74 was more flat and almost no smoke left. 85 was more lively and complex.

Wonderful beer. Thick and full of flavor. Roast and subtle notes of caramel. Some smoke, some raisins and prunes. Light citrus. Light booze. Some sweetness and light sweetness. Bottle mailed to me by my dad who was visiting the brewery. Thanks!

Wally’s: LA: Pours near black with a massive bubbly head. Aroma is roast malts, plenty of dark fruit, sugar, bread, kvass, and probably a couple things that I am missing. Taste covers the high amount of booze superbly we’ll. really. This is big ups for that. You get great body in this beer and a taste that is at the same time mellow and complex. That said the beer still makes it’s weight be known. It is rather sweet with a thick and sticky body. Mildly bitter aftertaste. Good stuff.

Had the chance to taste this famous beer while being able to chat with the people from the brewery so this remains a cherished memory. Apparently a resurrection of a long-forgotten German beer style that didn’t survive the "lager revolution" there, Hair of the Dog gave it their own twist and created this multi-grained masterpiece. Shows a firm, thick, stable, pale beige head and a very dark brown colour; perfumed in an intensely complex and delicious way, a feast for the nose, impressions of strawberry, milk chocolate, raisins, caramel candy, vanilla, tobacco, woodiness, multigrain bread, leather; in the mouth a very exciting and rewarding complexity, lots of dark fruits, candi sweetness, multi-layered and utterly profound maltiness reminiscent of caramel, honey, chocolate, adorned with fascinating hints of madera wine, vanilla and mild spices, finish creamy, warming and balancing the complex sweetness with an elegant and well-balanced toasted bitterness. It is a delight describing beers of this quality.

I got this in a trade and decided to open this up tonight.
I see that this is batch 91.
I poured this into a snifter.
The appearance is a nice dark brown color perhaps close to black. The head is a good two and a half fingers of white foaminess. There is a decent amount of adequate foamy lacing spider webbing all over the place.
The smell has a hearty roasty meatiness up front with a decent sweet sticky chocolate coming in behind.
The taste was fairly balanced between the meatiness and the chocolate. The aftertaste is somewhat a good balance between the meatiness and the chocolate. The finish is quick and dry.
On the palate, it sits about a medium with not too much of any sessionability about this. I’m finding this one to be more of a sipper. Do I feel the ABV? Perhaps. The carbonation is exceptionally smooth, whoah, wow, very smooth.
Overall, ok, this is a wonderful representation of the Old Ale style, big wow from me. Though very different from my all time favorite of this style, I still like this one a lot and would definitely have it again. So glad I finally had the opportunity to try it.