This was pretty standard fare, some roasted toffee maltiness, some dried fruit flavors, some herbal buttery hoppiness.

Bottle: Pours brown with a light tan head. Aroma, caramel, light roasted malts, toasted notes, some fruits. Flavor, caramel, fruits, toasted notes, some roast, herbal hops.

2007 Release Sampled December 2007 Pours with an initially, almost three-finger thick, lightly browned, tan colored head that sits atop a dark, weathered amber-brown colored brew. When held up to the light the beer shows a brilliantly clear, bright, yet concentrated, ruby red color. Quite malt focused, with an almost berry like, malt aroma. Concentrated, somewhat rich, malt notes of toffee, lightly browned, toasty malt, browned bread crust, a touch of brown sugar. This also has some nice, subtle hop aromatics that contribute to the light berry like fruitiness as well as provide a hint of an herbal edge. A nice and inviting aroma, not as rich and powerful as a Doppelbock for sure, but still nice and malt focused.<br /><br /> Chewy, yet not too thick, this has lots of rich malt flavor to it without being overly sweet. The sweetness has a certain savory quality to it, what with the concentrated toffee notes and richly caramelized malt sugars. Towards the finish the malt character leans towards a touch of dusty cocoa, toasty, drying dark malt notes as well as a clean, almost concentrated dark fruit note. The hop character, while not huge here, is definitely noticeable; flavors of soft herbs is noticeable from the get go and even picks up a bit of steam towards the middle with notes of menthol and grassy pine flavors. This finishes with a soft, yet noticeable bitterness that I would not quite characterize as biting. Like a good, regular strength, Bock should be, this beer has a chewy heft to it without being thick; it is still fairly quaffable and would be a perfect beer to pair with dinner &#40;it is not a sipping beer&#41;.<br /><br /> I really like the depth of malt character that this achieves, yet it is not too thick, and it has a nice backdrop of hop character too. Quite the tasty Bock!

This brew had a good reception at a Deschutes featured event at Bardenay last year in Boise. I guess I’d have to like the bock style which I don’t but if I did...

22oz bottle shared courtesy of TomDecapolis. Poured a deeper brownish color with a small sized off white head. Aromas of chocolate, roast, nutty, toffee and caramel. Tastes of toasted nuts, roast, chocolate, and caramel.