Dominion Millennium

Sampled at Badgerben’s Cellar Reduction Night. Uff Dah! Is this beer potent! Pours a clear light amber brew with a thin off-white head that slowly dissolves to a fine film and ring. Aroma of strong alcohol, caramel malt, some children’s cough medicine, citrus hops and a touch of pecan. Taste is medium to full bodied, lightly carbonated, smooth, creamy with a tart fruit and caramel flavor. Finish is strong alcohol, some acidic texture with a dry fruity aftertaste.

Cellar Reduction Night, Oct 20, 2007. Murky orange color with no head. Very strong, sweet malt aroma. The taste is very strong on the sweet malt. A little port/sherry flavors. Some mint.

Bottle. Clear amber color withsmall off white head.Weird milky malty aroma. Medium sweetness. Caramel, light wood malty flavors. light cherry flavor in the finish. Bottle date 040306

For a barley-wine, this struck me as being no better than average. There are barley-wines that are potent in their similarity to wine or spirits, with an alcohol astringency and slight sourness...and then there are barley-wines that are tremendously hoppy. And then there’s this barley-wine. It’s just kind of there. Appearance and mouthfeel are pleasant, but this has to be the least flavorful beer of this style, for good or bad, that I’ve ever had. It pours an orange ambrosia color, with so little head that I thought it would be very flat. However, mouthfeel was fairly complex and pleasant. But aroma and flavor were a bit of a let-down, or perhaps just a non-issue. Both were very faint. I detected some malt backbone and a whiff of hops, but this struck me as a beer that had lost its bite since packaging. If you’re hanging onto a bottle of this for cellaring, I’d advise you to drink it now. This ber is so mellow, so mild-mannered, so (if I dare say) boring, that I can’t imagine letting it mellow some more. I picked this up during a recent visit to the DC area from Norm’s Beer & Wine in Vienna, VA. The bottle informed me that it was packaged on 4 April 007, and the label told me it would lay down for "several years."

Fresh vintage. Molten red pour with a thin lining of white foam. Aroma suggests dark chocolate fudge and warm pecan pie. Rich caramel and winks of bright fruit. Bits of honey-oak whiskey, dates, and cherry skin. Very sweet. Differently, the taste is intially bitter, though not in a hoppy sense, and quite dry. This is a maple wood and nail polish collaboration before it softens a bit. A touch of citrus glaze, showing a pleasantly restrained use of hops, on an earthy wild rice mash. Definitely mildly hot. Burnt graham and distant pineapple juice in a slow, progressively sweet finish. Syrupy in the mouth. So promising, but very young.

Date: February 06, 1998
Mode: Draft
Source: Brewpub
Vintage: 1998
Appearance: opaque amber, whispy head, touch of lace
Aroma: rich malt aroma with nice hop accents
Flavor: rich aged malt flavor, lots of balancing hops, lots of bitterness
Overall: a cross between crusty and bigfoot

Date: January 31, 2003
Vintage: 1998
Appearance: slightly hazy dark amber, whispy tan head
Aroma: strong hops on a light malty aroma
Flavor: rich fruity malt flavor with well balanced hops, hints of alcohol erased by a bitter finish

Date: February 16, 2005
Vintage: 1998
Aroma: nice rich sweet fruity malt aroma
Flavor: rich creamy malt flavor, lots of rich ripe fruit character, just enough hops to balance without having any hpppy character

Date: February 01, 2007
Vintage: 1998
starting to pick up some oxidation in the malt, fruity character is becoming subdued, over the hill

Aroma: 8/10; Appearance: 8/10; Flavor: 8/10; Palate: 5/10; Overall: 17/20
Rating: 4/5.0
Score: ***4

Date: March 29, 2002
Mode: Draft
Source: Brewpub
Vintage: 2002
Appearance: hazy amber, big frothy head that settles down
Aroma: fresh hop aroma on a slightly sweet rich malt base
Flavor: big hop flavor, slightly green, lots of carmel sweetness, slight alocholic burn

Aroma: 7/10; Appearance: 5/10; Flavor: 7/10; Palate: 5/10; Overall: 16/20
Rating: 3.6/5.0
Score: **4

Date: March 22, 2003
Mode: Draft
Source: Brewpub
Vintage: 2003
Appearance: cl

12oz. Bottle: Aroma is medium to heavy sweet. Smells of malts, caramel, and piney hops. Poured copper/dark amber in color with a medium-sized off-white head that lasted throughout. Tiny lacing. Hazy. Sparkling. Flavor is medium sweet and lightly bitter. Tastes very bready with notes of caramel, malts, rye, pine, and hops. Medium to full body. Oily texture. Soft carbonation. Salty, bitter finish.

2 1/2 years old, an age that has yielded marvelous intricacies in previous samples of this beer. The pour is sedated, an amber body with an oily topping, only a soft hint at carbonation reflectd in the bubble clusters at the perimeter. Quietly, aesthetically pleasing. The aroma is nicely spiced and quite spicy with peppery notes, honey, cinnamon whispers and clove. Those nuances are a sexy foray into the mass of the nose, a bold caramel and vanilla poundcake melange, complete with cake icing styled sugars, pineapple and orange notes, fruity alcohol, berry esters, bubblegum and a hint of the prior hoppiness. This particular beer seems to consistently meld into one gigantic caramel/fruit punch, not a bad way to end up at all, always enjoyable. The flavor is very alcoholic, still firmly and heavily bitter from an interesting hop combination, gorged with fruit and still has an explosive youthful aura. Bitterness is medium-high, acidity is mild, sweetness is medium-high to high. Rustic notes, though partially subdued by alcohol and hops, still shine through at points and give the entire flavor a very earthy component. The finish is very warming, sweat inducing even, with crisp dryness and lingering caramel sweetness, hop resins and fruit notes. The palate is medium-full bodied, resiny, lowly carbonated and very enjoyable. This is a recipe prime for barrel aging; barrel aged samples have proven this notion true. Yummy.