Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 5

Draught pint with Dickinsonbeer at the brewpub on 10/6/06
Interesting appearance on most of their beers. Rather short-lived head, rapidly fizzling away, though it leaves a fair amount of spotty/sticky lacing as it recedes. The beers are all well-conditioned and quite clear, though you can tell only lightly filtered. This one is a deep mahogany with lighter magenta and peach tints when held to the light. The head is light beige in color.
Very minimal aroma, plenty of sourdough notes; toasty, highly attenuated medium malts and a fair amount of almost tannic dryness and acidity. Not overly yeasty, but there is some mineral nature to it and light earthiness. Hops are leafy, soily and rather diluted. Warming produces some faint chocolate sweetness, but it is still stretched very lean across the grainy/toasty, super-attenuated malts.
A high amount of water to malt ratio is notable immediately, being rather wet in the mouth, and the dryness from the nose is very present in the flavor, the malts being lean, highly attenuated and rather acidic/astringent. Some phenol extraction, very light coffee or chocolate with some very minimal yeast-like mineral character on the end. Low carbonation, very light body and just too much toastiness/sourdough without the necessary balancing sweetness/softness of more malt. Hops are again dry, soily and earthy, with a touch of boisterous red fruits emerging upon warming, but otherwise quite muted. No alcohol present.