Clipper City Heavy Seas Hang Ten

Brewed by Clipper City Brewing Co.
Style: Weizen Bock
Baltimore, Maryland USA

A nutty copper color. Light lacing from minimal head. Aromas of yeast, pancake syrup, rum, nectarine and sour apple. Rum-raisin taste, though this beer tastes also like a specialty of my grandmother’s -- sour cream and raisin pie. Palate features a fair amount of astringency at the finish and cloys a bit. Not sure this needed to be ten percent, but sure, whatever. The main drawback here is the sweetness throughout. It buries some of the flavors that would otherwise have been brought out by the alcohol.

Dark copper to umber in color. Fairly clear with yeast cling to the bottom of the bottle. Diminished head of light tan bubbles. Just a speck or to of lace. Heavy thick scents of malt and dark stewed fruit. Dates and prunes in a very dark rum slurry. Alcohol starts to ooze out as it sets with nail polish remover and paint thinner undertones. Toasted wheat and malt with a touch of vanilla in the front. Middle is soaked with fruit, with apricots, pears, currants, and dates. Finish has a slight return of malt, but the alcohol is really starting to overpower things by this time. Head and stomach are starting to warm. For me this is too strong. I like the idea, but the alcohol takes over in many areas. A slight toning back might do this one wonders.

12oz from Total Wine, Durham. Fairly clear garnet body, minimal and quickly dissipating head. Fairly complex nose, I suppose, with autumnal spice, sweet candies, almost like sniffing liquid fruitcake. Palate is a bit thin and watery, and there’s a trace too much booze in there. Somehow, though, there are these disparate elements swirling around but no definable character. Is this really a weizenbock or just a mélange of ingredients?

Served on cask at RFD in Washington DC. Pours a slightly watery, translucent muddy brown with zero head. Bananas, yeast, breads, spices and brown sugar in the nose. Flavor is similar, brown sugar, heavy banana, brown bread and flat yeast. Slightly thick and syrupy in the mouth, no heat. I might have liked this more not on cask, the carbonation might have helped with texture. As it was, I was unimpressed.

Pours a cloudy redish amber with a thin head and nice streaked laceing along the sides of the glass. The nose is full of floral hops and sweet candy. The flavor is nice with a bitter sweetness that pop in your mouth and leaves fruit stuck to your tounge. Overall it is a nice bitter beer with a bunch of zest in the after taste.

First of all, I love Clipper City Beer, secound of all, my wife is from Baltimore and she has a sexy ass, third of all I have grown to love weizen bocks. So, that said, the beer poured from a 12 oz bottle a dark, ruby red/brown. It formed a slight white head of foam that quickly dissipated. There were aroma’s of bananas, cloves, yeast, Flavour much of the same, perhaps a bit bolder, a sense of darken figs come through as well. Wonderful lacing lets you know a well made beer was there in your glass. This beer is smooth, cloudy, yet slightly dry enough to let you know that you are drinking beer. Caramel almonds finish of the taste and demand another swallow, yet another great beer from my Irish brothers in Baltimore. Drink it and love it!

12 oz, bb Apr 09. Foggy chestnut-colored with a small head that tries to endure. Banana, clove and slight soy sauce and alcohol aromas. Flavors of soy sauce, plum, tamarind, grape, apple, oak, raisin, and slight malt vinegar and alcohol. Banana, clove, wheat, bubblegum and hints of medium-rare steak and alcohol in the aftertaste. Medium body is almost smooth and just dry enough. Very interesting take on the Weizenbock style, with a well-hidden 10% abv.

Pours a hazy ruby with dark off-white to tan bubbles, has brown and darker hues at the sides, lots of floaties, decent amount of effervescence in the glass, this does not have as much head as some other weizen bocks sampled but I believe that may be because of the 10% alcohol, aromas of wheat, bananas, bread and dark fruit fragrances of plum and raisins, some dark bread, faint alcohol aroma shows up as the beer warms, flavors of plums, raisins, and dark fruit sweetness along with dark malt and dark bread, has some dark bread crust flavor, alcohol tastes sweet and dries out the tongue, not much alcohol warmth but it is present, more then medium mouth feel on the palate, felt a little under carbonated, not bad.