Ex-nerd

Our doppelbock bids a fond aufwiedersehen to tradition, charting a flight path into bold new territory. Medium amber in color, it offers a heady, estery banana aroma. Rich maltiness predominates, with cedar aging lending just a hint of spice to the finish.

Aroma: 8/12

Caramel and something that stings my nose like excess carbonation. There is no mistaking the smell of cedar, although it’s sharper than I would expect. The smell reminds me of cedar oil more than cedar wood. I don’t get any of the banana aromas the brewer suggests. Inhaling deeply leaves me with a fairly strong whiff of alcohol alongside of the other aromas.

Appearance: 3/3

Beautiful deep amber-red color. Light tan head dissipates via large bubbles until a thin but dense film covers most of the top of the beer. A quick swirl brings back a nice, thick head.

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Burton Baton is a blend of an English-style Old Ale and an Imperial IPA.  After fementating the separate beers in our stainless tanks, the two are transferred and blended together in one of our large oak tanks. Burton Baton sits on the wood for about a month.

Aroma: 10/12

Hops fading into caramel. After a swirl, caramel and oak with just a touch of grain. Only a hint of alcohol underneath belies the hefty 10% ABV. Unfortunately, the hops flavor dissipates fairly quickly, which is a sign of the length of time required to get the beer up to this much alcohol, but leaves me wanting more from something identifying itself as an IPA. I suspect that adjusting time and duration of dry hopping could help extend the hop aroma a bit further, but perhaps Sam wanted to emphasize the caramel and oak more than the hops.
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“Ommegang Adoration, brewed in the authentic style of Belgian winter, or noel beer, is dark, strong, malty and assertively spiced.”

Aroma:  12/12

Very balanced bubblegum that leans toward banana.  Hints of caramelized sugar and sweet malt.  Only a slight amount of alcohol, despite the high ABV.

Appearance:  3/3

Pours a dark red-amber with a thick foamy head that lingers for a couple of minutes before dissipating to lacing around the edge.  A quick swirl brings back a thin coat across the top of the brew.

Flavor:   18/20

Strong flavors of candi sugar and belgian yeast, with fairly prominent orange flavor underneath.  All sitting on top of well-balanced fruity belgian malt with perhaps just a hint of corn sugar.  A larger sip reveals fairly prominent taste of alcohol that dissipates into just a hint of hoppy bitter.
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I needed a bit of a change from the sweeter Belgian styles tonight, not to mention a smaller bottle that wasn’t quite so high in alcohol, so I grabbed a bottle of Stone IPA that I recently picked up to taste.  I feel that I should add a caveat to this post that I’m a relative newcomer to liking IPAs, and I started by drinking some of the best.  Since then, I’ve been trying to find something a bit more affordable that can still fill my occasional need for a beer on the light and dry side.  Unfortunately, starting with the best has made me pretty picky.

The beer pours with a nice white head that dissipates after a minute or so.  It smells lightly of caramel malt flavor along with what I can only guess is the Centennial hops (I just haven’t had enough exposure to hop varieties to distinguish them — but it’s the only particularly aromatic variety listed on their website).
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Allagash describes their Black beer as a “Belgian style stout”.  This may sound somewhat odd to an experienced beer drinker who knows that, though often difficult to precisely define, the stout is a spinoff of British Porters and should have little in common with Belgian beers that are known for their sweetness and flavors ranging from fruity to spicy.  However, one taste of this will confirm that Allagash has their classification correct.

It pours with a relatively short light tan head that dissipates after a few minutes into a thin film that will last for as long as it takes you to finish the glass.  There is relatively little nose on this beer — what does come through hints of coffee and caramel.  On first taste, this is just a traditional stout, reminiscent of something like Sam Smith’s oatmeal stout, though with a thicker body and mouthfeel more like a cream stout (I’d really love to try this on nitro, but that would be difficult to do along with the bottle fermentation and traditional carbonation technique used on this beer).
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