Flying Dog K-9 Cruiser

Brewed by Flying Dog Brewery
Style: English Strong Ale
Frederick, Maryland USA

Deep, dark, reddish color with a small-yet-creamy tan head that lingers on as a thick film. Dark fruits, citrus and raspberry in the aroma with dark chocolate, cereal and light esters. Solid body with a dry creaminess in the mouth. Flavor finds a fruity, bittersweet conglomeration of malts and hops with all the goodies we’d found in the aroma based atop a heap of DME and finishing with both a juicy kiss of citrus and a bitter lick of java. I just can’t stop liking this one.

<font size=-4>From a small liquor store in Burbank that carries a few micros and imports but isn’t worth adding to the RB database.<font size=-1>

Bottle. Clear, very dark brown colour. Small light brown head. Nicely roasted flavour, like a sweet dunkel. Quite malty.

Translucent brown color, not much head. Aroma included toffee, and some notes of wheat. Caramel, toffee and a hint of burned bread in the flavor.

Bottle. Reddish brown color with decent head. Lightly citrusy and floral aroma with notes of toffee and melon. Mellow and rounded flavor with coffee, toffee, licorice, light fruityness, light bitterness and some floral-citrusy hop flavor. Good finish with coffee, sweetness and floral-citrusy hops. Pleasant and mellow, interesting mix of mild roastedness and hops.

Bottle at The White Horse, Parson’s Green. Chestnut brown with a very small head, that is nonetheless quite stable. Sweet aroma of raisins and dried fruits. Flavours are cellar-like and surprisingly dry finish; raisins and dark fruit throughout, yet also very good bitterness. Full-bodied and rather soft. An explosion of flavours, yet still harmonious. A masterpiece of a beer.

Bottle 44F Pint Glass. Very sweet aroma, roasty and malty, no notice of hops. It is dark in color with a very small beige head that disappeared very quickly. The taste is sweet and very malty pretty much what I expected from the winter ale lable. Not bad but I have I don’t think I could spot if out of a line up, even among other dark colorado ales.

(12 oz bottle: Obtained 06-May-06 in trade with Otter, thanks Jeremy!) Freshness code of "070A06", which I believe means this beer "expired" on 11-Mar-06. Oh well, three months late. Honestly, for a darker beer, the nose is unexpectedly grainy, husky and uninteresting, though there is a modest earthiness and a hint of sweet caramel to add at least a little excitement. But based on the nose, I can’t say I’m excited to drink this beer. And tasting the beer, my suspicions have been confirmed. This is a dry, toasty, moderately roasty, lightly earthy beer with a fairly grainy maltiness, and to a lesser extent, a husky underbelly. Hops contributes little to the overall flavor. Body is nice though, medium-full on my palate, and carbonation is about average. Medium brown with a general ruddy hueand good clarity. The small, beige head quickly dissipates, leaving no lacing and not even a ring around the top edge of the beer. I guess a pretty typical Flying Dog beer here, not bad, but not great either, just something decent to drink when you aren’t in the mood to pay much attention.

Deep amber color with thin white head. Smells like a porter with the requisite amount of black patent roasted malts. Taste like a porter but with the addition of caramel notes. Very nice. There is also some smooth hop flavor in there too. Pretty good brew. Being a winter beer I might expect a bit more gravity.