Dogfish Head World Wide Stout 2002 (23%)

Formerly brewed at Dogfish Head Brewery
Style: Imperial Stout
Milton, Delaware USA

Aroma is like spiced rum, and faint coffee. Looks like flat coca cola. Taste is sweet like a barleywine with chocolate. Body is dead and alcoholic. A light scotch burn in the nose, the 18% version is great, but this is horrible and them most over the top beer I’ve ever had. Does WWS stand for World Wide Shit?

Wow. I held the glass up to the light and couldnt see anything through it. With the first sip the alcohol and sweet flavors were the most noticable, but then the nice malt roasty flavors came through. Has some chocolate and rum flavors. I dont think the Budweiser crowd could handle this. Very complex and interesting. Not something I would drink often, but worth a try.

There’s a wine-like quality to this brew, but it’s really too overbearing in it’s alcohol taste to really allow for appreciation of the actual stout! The first couple of sips are the worst, and I still have an aftertaste of the beer even after the st. bernardus! Wow! Insane.

Bottle at DFH Extreme night, Anam Cara, 1/27/05. Absolutely pitch black pour at first. As it decants slowly and viscously in to the St Bernardus trappist glass, it seems to suck all of the light in to its murky, dark depths. . . .but then it settles out and I realize this is another filtered creation from DFH. Not going to mistake the bottom of this bottle with that of an Expedition or Dark Lord. No head, little to no carbonation. Aroma of. . .Alcohol! Pure, raw, unadulterated alcohol. The guy I was drinking with said letting it warm and breath would reduce this, and maybe to some extent, it did, but at the very end of the glass, there was still a strong, clear and pervasive stench of alcohol. Some faint hints of tar, dry molasses, and salty, almost smokey chocolate and roast. As far as flavor goes, I was rather put-off. Starts out with an immensely sugary flavor. Like stirring brown sugar in to the glass. Then you’ve got the alcohol, which hits hard and seems to throw everything off. Some notes of salty chocolate, black licorice and a dark smoked flavor all come in to the mix. As far as the body goes, I was not impressed at all. It seemed to have a very loose consistency with the syrupy sweet sugar providing the texture. Being overly filtered, it just didnt have any oomph to it. Not even on the same wavelength as Dark Lord or Expedition, or Owd Macs. Not chewy, not thick in the good sense of the word. Just powerfully syrupy. Black malt is quite evident, notes of maple and some coffee round out the finish. Served as an after dinner cordial, this makes more sense, but then this isnt Rateafterdinnercordials.com. It dosent need this much alcohol. A much better, underlying beer is being bludgeoned to death by the disgusting amount of residual sugar and cloyingly syrupy body.

Smells like red wine with hints of chocolate. Looks like any other stout, with a little less head than usual. Tastes just like it smells...very thick mouthfeel with a strong feeling that you are drinking wine with chocolate in it. Alcohol taste is there, but not to the point of taking away from the brew. The aftertaste is very chocolaty, with a portion of it being bitter from the booze. I paid 9$ for one bottle of this as opposed to the 149$ for a case. I can’t say that I’m either thrilled or dissapointed.

bottle from new beer.Jet black almost still.sweet boozy aroma. heavy mouthfeel. sweet flavors of mollasses ,lblack twizlers and coffee.sitck to your mouth warms going down.alcohol is not too over powering

Delicious very thick, potent, small head, goes down fast though not as alcohol tasting as one might expect

Thanks to JohnC for sharing. We had this as part of an Imperial Stout tasting, along with a WWS 21%, which was very different but along with this one stands in a class of their own. This one has a combination of dark fruit and mollasses that brings up terriaki to mind, but not to a distraction, it’s still quite excellent.