Can. Medium-deep translucent brown body, thick to medium tight cream head. Nose sweet and estery, quite toasty, with brown sugar, banana, clove, and a hint of cola. Rich and very nice. Body drier than expected, toasty with burnt caramels and spice- primarily clove; also pepper. Raisin notes round out the palate. Well-attenuated, thin, and watery.
Earlier Rating: 2/28/2011 Total Score: 3.6
On tap at the brewpub. Deep translucent red-brown ruby/garnet body, thin tight buff head. Nose of clove, toast, and dark fruit, estery with slight sweetness. Firm estery body with cloves, dark fruit (plum), brown sugar, and toast, with a spritzy mouthfeel. Quite good, clean and well-executed.

16 oz can. Pours the color of cola with a similar thinness and transparency in the light. Carbonation leaves a nice dense (but thin) head and little carbonation rises or sticks to the sides of the glass. First approach with the nose leaves the sensation of stepping into the grain bin of grandpa’s farm when I was a kid or going to the grain silos with him. Kind of a dusty and grainy aroma. Closer analysis indicates there is a little hint of dark fruit in the background, but it’s almost all grain. I’m wondering where the Belgian yeast complexity is at, because I’m not finding it in the nose. Flavor is better. Sure, it’s heavy with dusty grain, a little bit of a woodsy flavor (leaf detritus and firewood), nuts and just a hint of raisin or prune. It is light on the palate and doesn’t go very far... kind of thin. I like it enough, but it seems to lack complexity.