Dogfish Head World Wide Stout 2002 (23%)

Poured out of bottle, bought at Sam's Wine & Spirits in Chicago, 4/27/03. Truly awesome stuff. Perhaps *too* awesome, at least for my tastes. Very rich, very sweet, very full-bodied, almost syrupy beer. No head to speak of (and I dumped the beer vertically into a pint glass), but still a nice looking pour with the deep brown color. Tremendously powerful and complex flavors-- a total palate-shocker. Amazing to behold, and it does a hell of a job masking the 23% (!!) alcohol content. You can still taste the alcohol, of course (and you can certainly feel it by the halfway point of your first bottle), but it doesn't burn of 23%. Kind of steep in price ($7.99 a 12-oz. bottle where I live), but absolutely worth the splurge. A "six-in-one-pack" is what I like to call it, and it's a damn fine beer, but I can only handle it perhaps once every couple of months.

This is the darkest beer..and the best beer. The amount of flavors you get is amazing in each sip. Very sweet with a very plum taste. You can smell the alcohol more then you can even taste it. How they hide all that alcohol is what has me baffled. The mix of tastes are very complex. This is truly one kick ass beer...one to really be savored and enjoyed. This is worth every penny!

My first impression was that I didnt like it quite as much as the 18%. The alcohol was much more noticable, and it seemed like a barlywine/stout combination, rather than just a strong stout. Still, I was good, but like so many over the top beers, way overpriced.

This was a great beer experience. A bit too sweet to drink more than one, but you have too apprieciate the work that went into this great brew. 23% ABV is incredible.

Better than I thought it would be for such a strong beer. Kind of like a barleywine/stout mix. Rather sweet, but with a bit of coffee as well. More drinkable then you might expect.

Chocolate cognac aroma. Pretty good masking, although still a very warming finish. Overall sweet and syrupy flavour. A bit too sweet and over-the-top for me.

Dark brown leather color - translucent at the edges, bit of fizz on top, almost clear lacing. Big sweet maple aroma with very little alcohol. This is very malty sweet - plums/Mrs. Butterworth's maple syrup/a littl bit of Brach's butterscotch disks. The palate, though, wasn't as thick and syrupy as I expected it to be and that's a good thing - this could easilly get cloying over the course of 2 hours (how long it took me to drink it). The only time the alcohol was noticeable was at the finish it left a rough patch down the middle of my tongue. The 18% seemed a lot smoother and stout-like. This was more of a liquer. I'll try to hold on to my other bottle for a while and see how it changes.

This brew poured about as close to zero head as you can get. It had a strong aroma of grapes and alcohol. It reminded me of a strong wine. It is 70,000 mile unchanged motor oil opaque black body. WOW! What a strong fruity finish with a bubbly taste that was very sweet and very strong