bottle sample at Dark Lord Day - Pours dark brown with a caramel malt nose. It tastes of light roasted malt, kind of sweet, and has some alcohol presence. The finish is lightly hoppy.

Sampled at 3Floyds Dark Lord Day. Nice foamy pour atop an appealing dark body. Guess I’d just call it a good "dark beer" smell, malty rich, and free of distractions. Taste is light toasted malts, with caramel and just a bit of porter malts, all well balanced with strong German hops, a bit spicier than usual. Hints of smooth ale taste.

Growler brought by Mullman (i think, woops, I mean TrojanHorse Troy... nice) to Dickinsonbeer’s Pre-TAP gathering, thanks. Pours a clear golden, can see through the beer. A present aroma, get some sweetness behind the pilsner aroma. Body is medium, not much distinct taste. Coats the tongue a bit with a bit of bitterness at the end.

Cloudy straw colour. Dusty, spicy (anise), fruity (pear) aroma. Spicy flavour of hay, fresh bread, peach and pear, yeast (old barn) and a big rock after the rain. It’s fairly relaxed and unassertive about all of this. It’s confident and pretty and all that white picket fence stuff. That’s the main flaw, really. All the cool saisons evoke things that don’t make sense, so it’s got that, but it lacks the rusticity of the best examples. A great intro saison but I prefer more esoteric examples.

Hazy brown color. Malty aroma. Malty taste, loads of caramel, toffee, touch of warming alcohol. Caramel finish.

12 oz bottle-pours a 2 finger white head with gold/yellow color. Aroma is very aromatic, citrus&floral hops. Slightly musty. Taste is lemon, bitter light hops, sweet malt, alcohol. Oily mouthfeel, mild carbonation. Nice.

Clear golden color with a thin creamy white head. Aroma of citrus hops and some grassy notes. Mild citrus bitter flavor.

Tap at Waterfront Ale House, Brooklyn - Hazy light red in color - lots of fruity esters in the aroma, mostly strawberry, some citrus to compliment the moderate hoppiness - a little on the sweet side - lots of sticky, caramel malt sweetness and sugar-covered light fruits - hops are assertive, but still not enought to counterbalance the sweetness - some darker roasted malts and a smokiness come in near the end, making things a bit more interesting - I salute Victory for not going overboard for their anniversary ale, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it very much.

Draught pint at Sunset Grill on 3/23/06
Frothy, but small and mostly diminishing beige head atop a bright auburn-magenta-tinged copper-amber. Light chill haze to it, with some minor lacing.
Nose is surprisingly bursting with fruity hops. Well, perhaps not bursting, but they are large, round and full of yellow fruit notes. Plenty of ripe peaches, predominantly, with a light brassy-mineral note of alt yeast, deep toasted grains providing fair depth with no sign of alcohol. Light poundcake sweetness is quickly curtailed by bitter, dry, tettnang-like soily/hay notes. Of medium strength is the aroma.
The flavor continues the hop trend, with bountiful bitterness wedded to lightly sugary pale malts, with a tastefully done toasted malt, vienna-like huskiness that seems to offset the juicy hops perfectly. Very impressed with the abundance of hop flavors and bitterness without any suggestion of PNW. Good for them. Fairly nominal texture, with mostly tight carbonation, perhaps a little too expansive at times, but deep enough malts, peachy-fruits from the hops, hay, sweat and grass as well, and no sign of alcohol in the flavor. Darkens, with more sign of the roasted malts, as it warms, but nothing to get worried about. Balances the drinkability of an alt with the added flavor and gravity of a sticke alt.