Allgäuer Cambonator Doppelbock

Brewed by Allgäuer Brauhaus (Oetker Group)
Style: Doppelbock
Kempten, Germany

Clear brown pour with a ring of offwhite lace. Good aroma of malt, fruits, cabbage and brown sugar. The flavor is malty, fruity and sweet. The body has a light to medium thickness with an oily texture and low carbonation. A good, enjoyable doppelbock.

The Lure:
Hefty malt sweetness emulates molasses and that intrinsic vegetal/black bean doppelbock character (pils malt?). Cherries and alcohol deepen the experience, this is obviously a very good example of the style.

The Festivities:
The slick and rich mouthfeel transports the molasses’ sweetness and fruity vinosity to levels of excellence. Light roastiness ably teases the back of the sweetness. This is right on, and delicious.

Transcendence:
A boiling cauldron is a beautiful thing to behold.

(500 ml bottle from http://hitimewine.com) Pours with a thin off-white head atop a medium brown body. Head quickly disappears, some fine lacing left. Nose of red wine, raisins, brown sugar, malt. Exqusite taste of sugary malt well balanced with hop bitterness. Alcohol is the third dance partner, a most graceful one here. Jawohl!

Brown beer with reddish shine, tan head. Malty, sweet, caramelly nose, bit of grapes, honey? Sweet taste, caramel, very malty. Hardly any bitterness, some chocolatey notes come in later. Only a slight alcoholburn. Not the best doppelbock, but highly drinkable and tasty. Thanks a lot Nat!

Pastry dough, plums, prunes, raisins, chocolate and grapes in the nose. Clear dark amber-brown with a decent, fine bubbled, tan head that recedes to a generous and lasting cover. Dark pit fruits and caramelized sugar flavours blend together nicely with a clean, dough-like, yeasty undercurrent. Overall impression is fairly sweet and somewhat vinous with some light, tart, fruity notes. Medium-light body with lively, soft bubbled carbonation that engages the tongue. Tulip glass. Just above room temperature. Bottle (State Line Liquors, MD, Oct-05).

Cream to brown coloured medium head, rather stable; very dark brown beer with some disparate foxy highlights. Soft sweet nose, bit of dark chocolate, a tad soupy, parsley aroma. Sharpish dark malt taste with a dry-grainy touch. Ryebread, retronasal quite some sugar, but still overhung by a roasted malts flavour. Fruit sugar finish. Medium to well bodied, tad empty at the same time, since the restsugars seem to be all in filling the palate. Only after a long time sipping, a warming alcoholfeeling appears. Challenging beer - here’s one that has neither defaults, neither big plusses, and keeps me searching for hidden subtleties, as if I’m missing all its complexity. Strange. Dankeschön, Nat & Pivo.

Pours very dark for the style. Medium carbonation and a decent head. Aroma is very amlty, some chocolate, munich, and lots of other sweet malt. Some traditional doppelbock aromas as well. Flavor is a bit cloying, a bit too sweet etc. Malt seemed a bit old and not as fresh as it could be. Moderate mouthfeel but too sweet.

Truly enjoyable, but any doppelbock with a name that ends in "ator" is going to be compared with Celebrator, and this one falls short. A good doppel, dark with a medium fluffy coffee colored head. Good nose of dark malt, good taste of malt and chocolate and coffee and dried fruit. But none of the mouth-filling intensity of a Celebrator. Good beer, really good beer, just not in the "ator" league.