Fort Collins Spring Bock

Brewed by Fort Collins Brewery
Style: Dunkler Bock
Fort Collins, Colorado USA

12oz. bottle. Clear mahogany color with a small tan head. Nice caramel malt aroma with just the barest hint of wet cardboard. Flavor was strangely somewhat tart, with lots of caramel and some signs of oxidation. Still it was a very enjoyable beer.

I was expecting a maibock type of beer, but this poured dark and clear, more like a doppelbock. Nice malty aroma, good head retention, and a great grainy, roasty flavor (like whole-grain breakfast cereal, some would say Grape Nuts) with hints of soy sauce or teryaki. Rich and creamy, but also very clean with no traces of phenolics that sometimes mar lesser attempts. This blows away some of the real German doppelbocks that seem to have gone down hill recently, and is definitely one of the best American bocks I’ve tasted.

Bottle poured a clear reddish copper with a small dissapating amber head. Aromas of toasted malt, a bit of dark fruit and a hint of ketchup. Palate was light bodied and smoothy. Flavors of sweet malt, raisins and a hint of [you guessed it] ketchup with a crisp lingering sweet finish.

Dark amber body, quickly diminishing head. The aroma is decently malted, with only a sprinkling of hops. The flavor is also malty, and slightly sweet. Roasted nuts abound. The high alcohol is very well hidden, and I would have never guess that it was so high. A very pleasant maibock.

12 oz bottle consumed in the generous company of tiggmtl, MartinT and Rastacouere. Deep copper-bronze, clear and filtered-looking with a bit of lasting head....caramel, earth tones, just a touch of DMS in the nose (not enough to really ruin it), starchy and heavy (if an aroma can be) but also punchy and full....sweet, lightly grapy and alcoholic body, plenty of caramel and a touch of sourdough, malty and full....there isn’t so much anything wrong here as just nothing exciting or interesting.....

Beer pours a clear, very dark, red-plum-brown color with a small, frothy, off-white, mostly and quickly diminishing head. The aroma is malty with a light notes of caramel, cookie and lightly roasted grain; hoppy with a light note of herb; Yeasty with light notes of bread dough and a trace of damp basement; tiny trace note of raspberry. The flavor is heavily sweet, moderately bitter with a long, slightly warm, lightly tangy/sour, lightly sweet finish. The body is medium, the texture is velvety and the carbonation is lively.

Any first impressions?
-Frail head over the orangey red.
-Berry fruitiness eyes the inherent pils malt vegetal character which strangely recalls potato skins for me.
-Potent cranberry fruitiness isn’t helped by the lack of sweet maltiness.
-This is rather svelte-bodied for a bock of this gravity.

What if you dig deeper?
-The advertised smoked malts haven’t participated much.
-Alcohol is ably concealed, which is always fun in these big brews.
-The vegetal pils malt character takes a little too much room for my tastes.
-There is a fun bock in here somewhere, but it just doesn’t hit the spot for me.

Bottle; no date.

Pours to a reddish body with a foamy, creamy looking light beige head. The aroma is sweet, lightly rauchy, breads, light baked apple. The flavor is sweet, woodsy, tobacco’ed bacon?, very hard to describe. They’ve fooled around with a bock by throwing in the Rauch malt. Kinda a strange beast. Surely doesn’t taste like 9%. The palate is sweet, medium bodied, kinda like a syrup but not sticky, lightly "dry".