Dogfish Head Chateau Jiahu

Brewed by Dogfish Head Brewery
Style: Traditional Ale
Milton, Delaware USA

[896-20071201] 1pt9.6floz (Xmas Party 2007, beerhugger & guests). A little sour honey wheat aroma. Hazy, orange brown body with a quick foamy white head. Sweet honeyed yeast flavour is not that pleasant. Medium body. Mildly interesting.

Pours a hazy orange color with a ring of white lace. Aroma of oranges, ginger and spices. Flavor of oranges, ginger, spices and ginseng(?).

Big honkin’ bottle poured in a tulip (the glass, no the flower... although now that I think about it that would be pretty cool if a bit pretentious...). DHCJ pours murky & orange with a small rocky head. The aroma is subtle but very pleasant. It has a mild citrus smell that isn’t quite lemon nor orange. There’s a hint of honey as well. The body is medium with a standard amount of carbonation. The taste is very corn-like. There’s a touch of flowers or clover in there as well. Honey and potatos are hiding in there too. This isn’t too bad. It’s something that you could sit around and drink (but at 9% that may be unwise). The alcohol doesn’t show through at all on the first drink but is more obvious on the rest of the glass. It’s pretty noticable actually but not in a bad or overwhelming way. If you were adverse to the white liquor taste (gin, rum, tequila, etc.) you might find it a bit offensive. The finish is clean and quick! All in all I think I like this. Our Chinese ancestors could have done a lot worse (see the Heather Ale from Scotland, yuck!) than this.

12-29-07 bottle.
Cloudy orange pour with white decent head. Smells malt heavy and like corn syrup. Thick decent palate. Taste is so overwhelmingly CORN-like. It reminds me of drinking the remaining milk from a bowl of Corn Pops. Alcohol is noticeable but not too overpowering. I thought it would be better, but at least it is unique!

Bottle. Golden body with a white ring of head. Aroma of honey and some strange spices along with anise and raisin. Taste is sweet and grainy with some raisiny sugars. Alcohol prevails throughout and didn’t help much in this weird brew.
Tasted in December 2007.

750ml Bottle: Clear orange-amber body. No head, just a white ring around the glass. Nice carbonation, bubbles dance from the glass bottom. Aroma is bananas & honey w/ a slight spiciness about it. Bananas were the last thing I expected to smell here??? Flavor is sweet on the initial taste. Honey, lively carbonation, almost a grapey sour taste at the end. Kind of wine-like & I don’t care for wine, but this is good. Beer went from clear orange-amber to cloudy as I poured the last third of the bottle. Leaves a sweet stickiness in the mouth. Alcohol is very well hidden, I wouldn’t guess this was 9% if a blind tasting sort of thing went down.

Bottled 8/28/06, kept in my cellar since Jan 07. Pours a brilliant orange-amber, but hazy. Little head, no lace. The orange character is almost neon. Aroma is honey and hawthorn, with hints of orange peel. No hop aroma. Some slight musty/yeasty character. Flavor is honey and hawthorn again, with more orange peel and perhaps a touch of champagne flavor (perhaps from the muscat grapes?). Overall it comes across very balanced and complex. Sweet upfront, fading into a pleasant tartness. Body is medium to full. Tail is all balance, with both the sweetness and tartness lingering and pleading for more.

Cloudy orange pour with a quickly fading head. Smell is corn and rice like malty sweetness with notes of grapes as well. Taste is fairly sweet, notes of corn, rice, again along with a slight hint of grape too. Light bitterness in the finish, but sweet beyond that in the aftertaste. Interesting, but slightly cloying and very lagery corn like. Good for sharing but probably not in large amounts.