Hair of the Dog Doggie Claws (2003-)

Brewed by Hair of the Dog Brewing Company
Style: Barley Wine
Portland, Oregon USA

These guys make great beer. This beer is no exception. Excellent barleywine. Everything is perfect......EXCEPT...it’s just a little to sweet.

Strong hoppy nose. Spicy pine hops with a good deal of malty sweetness- honey, caramel, toffee. Pours amber/copper with a great head and awesome lace. Pine, grapefruit hops. Caramel toffee honey. Good sweetness and awesome hops. Big but balanced. A little dankÝ hop nÓtes show up too. Big full creamy body. Nice carbonation.

Blue cap courtesy of craftycarl21. A wondrous start to the 21st birthday tasting. Well carbonated despite recent troubles. Brown pour with hints of toffee and a small white lively head. Some sediment finds its way to the bottom, but overall she looks beautiful. Aroma first presents in a hop oriented manner- lots of spruce and resin with a warming kick of nasal warming booze. Malt character is caramel and biscuity in nature, but the evergreen is inescapable. The malt character is much more prevalent in the flavor: caramel and floral honey swirl together in a sweet torrent of deliciousness. Hop profile is much less pronounced than the aromatic bouquet might suggest, but acts to provide an excellent sappy evergreen balance. Booze character is far less noticeable in the flavor and almost goes unnoticed in the wake of such a defined sweet malt presence despite its rather high content. Palate is rich, velvety, syrupy, and chewy with a nice fine bubbled effervescence and and smacking but clean finish. Masterfully put together and incredible balanced- I’m going to go sip this by the fire now...

The first beer of what promises to be perhaps the best tasting of my life. Brown pour with a caramel tint to it; minimal bubbly head, and some noticeable sediment at the bottom of the glass. Aroma holds great hop character, with evergreen resin, earth, orange rind, and lemon. Near the finish the malt character comes out, with caramel, biscuit, booze, and a bit of that honey. Malt is much more pronounced in the flavor, with heavy molasses, honey, caramel, toast, but still the great Simcoe bitterness and dark, piney hop character. Palate is luscious; not too thick, but the sweetness and bitterness are beautifully complimentary. The 11.5% is warming and welcome, but not aggressive, more of a massaging booziness. Excellent American style barleywine, just the quality I’ve come to expect from HOTD. Note: didn’t experience any of the carbonation issues that people have been discussing with the blue caps.

2009 bottle. Pours a dark, syrupy amber. Rich aroma of pine, cherries, and brown sugar. Molasses, prunes, pineapple, and citrus. Still young, but delightful, nonetheless.

2009 bottle Picked up at Full Throttle Bottles. Dark brown in color with a small head that sits around the edge of the top; looks like a great beer to me, but I haven’t had a bad Hair of the Dog. Definitely a strong hop aroma with this thing. Nice pine-type hop aroma. Definitely a subtle sweet malt backing that compliments the pine almost citrus hop flavor. Slight sweet dough aroma. Fairly nuanced beer, but I think some time on this one would really improve the aroma, and bring out those malts a bit more. Definitely get a sweet subtle honey aroma. The sweet honey/malt flavor comes through more to me in the flavor than in the aroma. Hops are still there. Still a subtle pine and slight citrus hop. Pilsner malt is definitely there too. Ah, a nice smooth flavor. Very good offering from Hair of the Dog.

Now this is a winter warmer. Cheeks flushed after drinking. Hoppy aroma. Big hoppy taste and alcohol flavor. Easy to drink despite the 11% alcohol. Might taste even better after a year.

2009 bottle, Smells like caramel. Pours cloudy with yeast and looks like muddy water which is not a dealbreaker, just not very appetizing-looking in a clear glass. Also some raisin notes. Almost no carbonation in stark contrast to the Adam and Fred I had which practically burst from the bottle. Tastes sweet, but not sickeningly so. Finish is bitter with a very slight alcohol tinge. I would like more of these to store for a while and see how it tastes then.