Bottle: Pours a rich mahogany with a nice beige head reminiscent of leather bound books? Fruity and lively aroma of caramels, brown sugar, and citrus. Flavor is more distinctively malty with caramels, earthiness, citrus, fruitiness, and a good balance of hops. Creamy and rich on the palate. Thanks BuckeyeBoy.

Hazy mahogany with a small tan head. Big malty aroma of caramel, brown sugar and a bit tanned leather. Barly wineish bot softly hopped. Flavor is more woody and bitter. Soft and heavy smooth feel, lively carbonation. Lingering hop bite. Very nice.

2006 bottle: Pours a hazy copper color with a thick and foamy off-white head that diminishes slowly. Patchy lacing. Coriander, orange peel and yeast in the nose. Medium-bodied with a sweet character. Flavors of Belgian candi sugar, yeast and sweet spices are all present. Touches of alcohol and malt are present as well. The finish is sweet sugar and spice and lingers a bit. Overall this is an enjoyable Belgian, although it does not quite live up to the standard set by Alesmith’s other beers. It swings a little too far on the sweet side so the complexity suffers a bit as a result. I would get this again but the price would make me think twice.

750mL bottle aged some, 3 months, drunk on 10/5/07
Stunning appearance like all AleSmith beers. Large, dense, light-tan head that refuses to recede throughout the entire bottle. Full lacing. Leaving the sediment behind, the beer is a mostly clear, deep black cherry with chocolate brown hues.
The hops come first, as expected, and are fat and juicy, enlivening the aroma with pear, lime, lychee, and mandarin orange. Resin begins to creep in, towards the end, but it only really gets a bit too much towards the end of the bottle (which is hardly a complaint when you’re drinking a whole bottle to yourself). Mounds of gooey-sweet malts lie below, rich and full of caramel and cookie dough. Phenomenal extraction, as always, giving a malty, rather than sugary impression. Vanilla courses through the aroma, after some more investigation, and the citric hops blend with the base malt sugars to give a cherry-like appeal, very sweet and fruity. After 3 months sitting warm on the shelf, this is still a very impressive hop aroma and, most importantly, it dosent kill you with bitterness or fusels, like the 2005 did when young. Medium-high, to high strength of aroma, no flaws, low alcohol apparency. The absolute richness of the malts seems to preclude them from yielding more deeper, complex aromas, but that’s ok. My only complaint, as has been steady with AleSmith’s strong ales (except for speedway), is the strong, plasticy-popcorny yeastiness (some call it mineral, some celery, some dirty). Kind of reminded me of Bells Batch 7000 in that regard, though much less of a factor here, and only really obvious at the end of the bottle.
I had to practically chew my first mouthfull down. Damn, this is some seriously thick beer, definitely among the likes of Expedition and Dark Lord. With the low, but natural, tight carbonation, and huge malt richness, the mouthfeel is rendered vastly creamy and supportive. Pillowy, with caramel, moderate chocolate and soft fruits emanating underneath the well-displayed hops on top. Cherries, mangoes, peaches, limes, lychee, etc...It’s all here and very nicely done. A fair amount of bitterness, but nothing the malt body can’t handle here. Stays malty to the last drop, with lots of cookie dough sweetness, but, importantly, I was never put off by the sweetness and easily finished the bottle. Alcohol didn’t get in the way. I speak mostly of bad characteristics it lacks, and to some extent, it does more right, but not doing it wrong, than really doing anything amazing (aside from the mouthfeel, which is just awe-inspiring). Yeast gets a bit plasticy/dirty again, but these things happen with bottle conditioning, quite often, and I’m willing to live with it. It didn’t help that the store it was stored in is fairly warm.

Cloudy deep gold,fast fading beige head. Fruity alcohol nose.Starts sweet, then orange peel bitterness and spice.Lacks carbonation Not their best offering!!