Tonight I am going to review another beer from the Troegs Brewery in Hershey, PA, but first I want to talk about why I was away for two days again. It's Beer Week! And although I haven't been hitting a lot of the events I have caught a few. One in particular was a wheat weekend at The Grey Lodge Pub, near my home and this is where I enjoyed many a sour beer on Saturday and my favorite in the ten beer lineup (I only drank 7) was Sanctification from Russian River which also happened to be the more sour of the lineup. It's weird because I used to dislike the idea of sour beers and this event opened my eyes! In keeping with beer week I also endeavored to keg 3 beers and do a little work on a small beer that I made and was cloudy. I was thinking that it was infected, but I got no real bad tastes from it other than it was still sweet and with a gravity reading of 1.022 I decided to add finings to the batch and mix real well and put back in the chamber. Well, it started fermentation again AND cleared up. Go figure. This is well after I tried to cold crash it to settle out the haze. I'm kind of happy that I gave this beer some effort because it was a beer that was pretty much free to brew as I reused the grains and the yeast straight from another fermentor and there in lies where I thought it may have gotten skunked. I"m crossing my fingers! Anyway, I had not found the time to write and I know it detracts from my original plan on doing this every night, but that goal is just not realistic! I am giving it my full effort though! I'm just trying to relax a little as well. So I hope that you all enjoy my writings. I have been making an effort to shorten the reviews a bit so not to loose any audience. I'm always looking for feedback so please, feel free to say "hey!"
I'm drinking a Doppelbock from Troegs tonight. That style is German in origin and a lager with generally a stronger profile than just a lager. A doppelbock (double bock) is a lager with double the malt and more like a meal in a glass. Full bodied these beers can even take on some roasted character and this one does a little!
The aroma is caramel malty sweet dominant with raisin bread and cherries as well.
AS this beer warms, more comes out! Imagine that! It's main flavour is caramel malt and is really forward but there are definitely solid black cherry notes as well as a mild roasted flavor and a bit of bready yeastiness. (I love making up beer words). As the sip finishes the roasted notes actually dry out the sweet a bit keeping it from being "cloying" and some very mild peppery notes arrive. There is a VERY mild hop bitterness and a slight warming from the alcohol, but not much in the way of being noticed flavor wise.
The mouthfeel is obviously full and sweet and admittedly like candy, but it's not sickening sweet and quite drinkable. The carbonation is kept at bay by the sweetness and is low. Pretty typical for this style. It does make a transition into dry which is pretty interesting! LIKE!
Overall, I would LOVE to try this on tap as I find it pretty dang good in the bottle. Personal feelings about the beer aside, I think this fits into the style excellently especially with the roasted notes and also pulls off a pretty amazing cover up of the alcohol and provides some nice roasted notes. I would say that this is pert near being world class and gets a solid 4.5 out of 5 overall from me.
Try this beer. Try this style of beer. It's a good transition actually as it is low in IBU's (hop bitterness) and high in alcohol. Enjoy life! Drink good beer!
-Wiss
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