Bottle at GBBF08. Rough hop aroma. Caramelly flavour, distinct hops. A little sweet, but quite alcoholic. Burns my throat a bit.

Bottle. Pours the color of a slightly tarnished penny with a minimal head and aromas that are heavy with earthy and caramelly malts. Almost a smokiness to it with some fruit jam. Flavor is cloying... overly sweet maple syrup malt with little else to balance things out. Blech!

Bottled@GBBF2008. Deep amber colour, mediumsized beige head. Aroma is maple syrup, sweet alcohol and caramel malts. Also some berries and fruits. Flavour is mainly the same in a sweet way.

Bottle from GBBF 08. Having had a couple of hundred German beers, I still haven’t found many from N.America that match them. This is beautifully clear ruby, thin lasting beige head. Fruit, deep dark jammy, some red fruits, bit of syrupy malt all on the aroma. It’s a fair crack at a doppelbock. Full enough in mouth. There is some dry malt in there and some sweetish alcohol. The sweet strawberry jam flavour is rather lovely. Bit like me mam’s homemade strawberry jam. Never too syrupy. If anything quite light on the swallow. Hops on end give a tingling finish. Very impressive.

Clear dark amber with medium off white head. Sweet aroma with caramel and toasted malt with hops to go. Sweet malty flavor with caramel and hoppy notes. Ends bitter.

Bottle from a sampler. Hazy brown pour with no head. Grainy aroma with notes of banana and brown sugar. Fairly full bodied taste has notes of banana, pineapple and toffee.

Hazy dark amber. Raisin and brown sugar in a fairly straightforward, slightly grainy aroma. Sweet, simple toffee taste, with a hint of earthiness. Comes off like a really by-the-numbers doppelbock, which is fine, but my favourite examples tend to have a bit more flair.

Bottle says drink within 4 months of 10/06, which means 02/07, and I didn’t notice until I was at home with this sixer of it in late 05/07! Still, assuming 10/06 was the bottling date, I’d figure an 8.2% doppelbock could withstand 7-8 months. I suppose it did, but for the oxidation. Poured a lightly hazy reddish amber color with a small layer of foam. Aroma was strongly melanoidiny with that weird grape jolly rancher character I get in many doppelbocks. Rich and bready, with a leafy and earthy hop character to complement it. The flavor much the same but for some mild layers of sherry and cardboard. The beer wasn’t bad because of this, in fact it added some interesting complexity and made the beer feel old (in a good way). However, I’m sure this beer might be really nice fresh, full of rich, clean munich malts. Will revisit again upon next release.