Pours a dark brown color with a slight reddish tint. Medium beige head and thin lacing. The aroma is malty and chocolaty. Medium-bodied and very smooth and toasty throughout. The flavor is sort of a hybrid Doppelbock and Porter. Coffee, malt, caramel and chocolate are all present. The finish is lightly bitter roasted coffee and sweet malt. All in all a well-balanced and easily drinkable beer from New Holland.

Looks like it’s Michigan’s turn to figure out if this beer is divine or not. Phi pours a deep red-brown (almost like a dark red wine), topped by a medium light tan head. Aroma is toasty with toffee and a touch of cheerios and earthy hops. There seems to be a bit of discussion as to how to classify this beer, so I’ll add my take. Phi seems to fit somewhere between an Old Ale and English Strong Ale...of course, it is apparently a lager. That said, this is a very ale-like lager, with toast and toffee balancing the sweet caramel/fruit flavors of the Munich malts, finishing with a nice, earthy, toasty bitterness. Most strong lagers have a syrupy, bulky mouthfeel, but Phi is lighter on the tongue and is crisply carbonated. Alcohol is well-hidden but makes itself known on the tongue after a few sips. Reminds me a bit of another beer in the "High Gravity" series, Dragon’s Milk. Worth the wait.

2005 edition.This year’s recipe appears to be different, and that’s not a good thing. The body is much lighter (hazy light orange with a thin cream-colored head). Aroma of fermented fruit (peach, white grape, apricot) and wet hay. The flavor is a rather nightmarish concoction of reeking fermented fruits (same as above, with some apple notes too), caramel, and toast, combining to form a medicinal, syrupy morass from which little redemption can be pulled. Finishes sickeningly sweet and a touch leathery. Underfermented and highly disappointing. The 2005 version may warrant a separate listing.

5-3-5-2-10 (2.5)