Drakes 15th Anniversary

Formerly brewed at Drakes Brewing Company
Style: European Strong Lager
San Leandro, California USA

Thanks Herbjones! Flavor wise I would call this an Old Ale. The hops take a real backseat to the malt, and I pick the hop bitterness, but not much of the flavor. Aroma is sweet, prunes mixed with a little brown sugar. The alcohol becomes much more apparent as I let this beer roll across my tongue. I wonder if this beer is bottle conditioned. I think aging it would better integrate the flavors, but aging a lager isn’t something that is typically done. Sweet finish. Time in the cellar might very much improve this beer.

Muddy caramel pour, white head quickly leaving. Strongly bready munichs will hint at old bread box, grassy water plants, rubber, apple skin and ethanol before it’s over. It makes for a chaotic complexity, very demanding to get over the alcohol. Very sweet in mouth obviously, has the time to become overly so before the sworned over hops have their effect. Medium body, strong and sloppy mouthfeel with a developping underneath papery oxidation despite the assumingly young age. Ehhmm, not my style at all.

Amber color, with a smooth and large head of off-white foam, which shows nice retention. Aroma is very hoppy, with a weedy, floral, peppery and herbaceous blend. The nose also has hints of apple, caramel and brash alcohol. The flavor is initially sweet and malty, with caramel and toffee flavors, as well as apples and pears, until the mid-palate shifts to a blast of dry, herbal hop flavor, which lingers on with spicy and weedy accents. Medium body, with a mildly creamy, but not so texturized body.

Bottle: Courtesy of Styles. Aroma is a fruity combination of fruit punch and apple with some light yeast and caramel. Pours a cloucy reddish-brown with a decent off-white head. Flavor has lots of fruit and moderate caramel. Finish has a light bitterness with moderate alcohol. As it warms it becomes citrusy and slightly hoppier. It really starts to resemble a barley wine and is quite good.

09-Oct-05 (33.8 oz swing-top bottle: $9.99 at Holiday Wine Cellar in Escondido, CA) Okay, so now that I get to try this beer in a better setting (in front of my computer, with a clean pint glass), I’m really liking this beer a lot. There’s only one problem; this flip-top bottle of beer is bordering on flat. It has enough carbonation so that the beer isn’t a total loss, but it’s clearly less carbonated that intended. But this is a minor issue for me because everything else is so damn enjoyable. Hot damn, what a tasty brew! Very sweet, very malty, fruity, much apple, moderately bitter (in the finish) and fairly alcoholic throughout. Malty, fruity, sweet and alcoholic nose. Fairly dense and sticky on the palate, and despite the low carbonation levels, this has a mouthfeel of a light barleywine. Medium brown in color and fairly cloudy. Due to low carbonation, there’s not much head, and it’s mostly just a bunch of large bubbles. But on the final pour, I actually got a quarter-inch of head that left some modest lacing on the glass. I like this even more than I liked it at the Strong Ale Festival. I think aging has really helped this beer, especially in the nose.

03-Dec-04 (Draft: 2004 Strong Ale Festival, Pizza Port in Carlsbad, CA. Day 1, Beer 9) After all these strong beers, the aroma on this beer is out of place for this festival. It smells like a basic lager, but once past that aroma, a moderate sweetness emerges with a lightly sour Belgian characteristic. Now then, onto the flavor, and it’s considerably different than that initial lager aroma. It’s sweet, like candi in a tripel, and mildly bitter, but lacks the spicy, bubblegum flavors of a tripel. Moderate alcohol presence. Sweet, coating palate. Ruddy, light amber in color, somewhat hazy. Light tan head has average size on the pour, but gradually fades to a sheen and small ring. Some modest lace is left on the glass. So I don’t know, this is like a lager that aspires to be a tripel, but has some learnin’ to do. Nevertheless, I still like this beer quite a bit. (7, 3, 7, 4, 15, total: 3.6)

! liter swingtop bottle poured a cloudy copper with an amber head. Aromas of dark fruit, plum, raisins, molasses and some spiceness. Palate was heavy and a bit syrupy. Flavors of bitter chocolate, dark fruit, molasses, some cinnamon, and a hint of apple with a bittersweet finish.

Contributed by MrDick in the moving Joe back to Cali extravaganza on his fabulous patio. Nice, and Rich (get it?) teetering on sweet. Hell, it IS sweet but not too sweet. Had no idea what to expect even after drinking a bit and staring at the description on bottle. Glad I have another to sample later and hope to dig deeper as there was some complexity here that I think was lost in the chaos of the moving shuffle.

Dense dark reddish appearance. Roasty, intense fruity aroma, wild spicy berry. Sweetish creamy palate, fruity - plims. Fairly bitter sharp second half. Lingers long and fruity with plums, blackcherry, pear and soft vanilla tones.