Dogwood Winter Ale 2003

Formerly brewed at Dogwood Brewing Company
Style: Abbey Dubbel
Atlanta, Georgia USA

Abbey Dubbel? Hey, it wasn’t a bad beer but it was no dubbel. Muddy chestnut brown. Aroma is chocolatey, slightly nutty with cherry and blackberry notes. Flavour has a lot of milk chocolate...this might be a sweet dessert porter but abbey dubbel?

This brew pours with a very dark brown to black body toped by a medium thick tan head with lots of lacing. The aroma is slightly roasty and malty with slight sour notes. There’s also some vanilla and oakkey notes. The flavor is sweet, malty and roasty with slight chocolate notes, a touch of sourness and lots of vanilla. Full bodied, smooth and a touch dry.

Practically opaque dark red body over a stiff frothy tan head. The aroma is of unripe plums and cooked banana. Sweet and spicy flavor.. It starts with a yeasty, sweet grapes and roasted malt and finishes with an unpleasant metallic alcohol twang. Body’s decent, I think the carbnation is a bit high. Overall a bit on the boring side with all the sweetness.

Head is initially small, frothy, light brown, mostly diminishing. Body is murky dark brown, bottle conditioned. Aroma is moderately yeasty (cobwebs), moderately malty (caramel, cookie), with notes of clove, banana, raisin, and brown/candy sugar. Flavor is moderately sweet, lightly acidic, lightly bitter. Finish is lightly sweet, moderately acidic, moderately bitter. Medium body, syrupy texture, lively carbonation. Seems to be an attempt at a Belgian brown ale / dubbel...it doesn't all come together cohesively, but the individual elements are decent. A good sketch that still needs more work.

This is an unfiltered Belgian Dubbel style beer brewed for this season. The appearance was completely opaque dark brown with a significant level of yeast sediment cloudiness. Brown rough head formed and dissipated quickly. The beer left clingy thin lace. It smelled of roasted coffee and chicory, with hints of chocolate. The taste was sweet caramel, toffee, and toasted malt, with a subtle hop spiciness. Very slick and oily mouthfeel. Somewhat thin and watery. A very tasty and drinkable beer that would benefit greatly from a more substantial body and a warming alcohol content. Update: I am glad to report that aging does this beer a lot of good. The 6 month aged version poured out very frothy and lively, and seemed to have opened up a vinous fruity character as the spices are fading. This one ought to get better with a few more months. I was doing a head to head with St. Bernardus Pater 6, purchased on July 1st., and the hometown brew is better.

This cloudy dark brown ale is full of licorice, nuts, cinnamon, bread, banana, and spices. Palate is luscious, flavors linger. Seems to lurk somewhere between Dubbel and Weizenbock. (thanks capt.cougar)

very spicy is apparently all i could think of to write at this time in the evening. anyway, drinking this beer reminds me of sitting in a ski cabin in front of a blazing fire. very nice image to bring to mind.

As Haukur said it has a barley wine-ish feeling it had to it. This is a nice, little spiced and warming Ale.