Founders Deca

Formerly brewed at Founders Brewing Company
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Grand Rapids, Michigan USA

Bottle:   Rich caramel in color, deep, slight ruby accents, moderate foamy light beige head, fairly sticky lacing.   Spicy nose, malty, caramel, ginger, moss, pine, spruce, with hints of burnt toffee and brown sugar.   Damnit, this beer reminds me soo much of something else I had within the last few months.   This is 13%?   Get outta here!!!   Warming, but not alcoholic.   Certainly a fairly malty sob, with minor hints of hops, caramel, pine, and spruce tips.   Fairly sweet, but not heavy enough to be cloying.   Certainly a big beer.   Combination brown sugar and pine sweetness from start to finish.   Body and mouthfeel are moderate to full.   Certainly not a thin beer.   There is another spice in here that is hard to identify.   Has a herbal quality to it as well.   Sweet, caramel like, with a fresh cut tree like presense.   This one is pretty damn good, complex, smooth, and very warming.   I must say, I really enjoyed this one.   Lingering hot caramel and alcohol.   Thanks Chris for the bottle!

Bomber, courtesy SoLan. Pours a ruddy, swirly, brownish-amber color with a small head of beige foam that fades quickly. Skinny, jagged snakes of lacing circle the glass. The nose hits with an overwhelmingly sweet caramel malt bill, with loads of stewed, figgy, dark fruit and a massive amount of baking spices. Ginger is most prominent, combining with the caramel to form a gingersnap cookie feel. Flavors too are shockingly sweet, again heavy on sharp ginger, caramel, and reduced brown sugar. There’s a distinct breadiness to it from the yeast, but very little in the way of hops or any sort of of balance. The body is thick, syrupy, and cloying, with a peppery burn from the ginger. Eh, this is not for me.

Courtesy SoLan. Pours a dark amber color with a reddish hue topped by a small tan head that settles quiclky to a thin film. The aroma was very sweet smelling of caramel and toffee malts, spices, dark fruits, and tons of candied sugar. The flavor follows suit with the dark fruit, raisins, spices, and very sweet toffee and candied malts. The malts, candy sugar, and booze dominate everything else in this brew making it just so overly sweet. Thick and full bodied with a syrupy mouthfeel with a long, sweet boozy finish. Just to sweet for my liking, but this may have been better when fresh.

Bottle kindly shared by SoLan. Pours copper with a faint head and little lace. Ginger! Sugar, brown sugar, alcohol and spicy. A sickly sweet hot mess with ginger. Not my thing before the ginger, even less my thing with the ginger.

Courtesy moejuck. Dark amber, small tan head. Aged malt, sweet malt, booze, subtle spices. Same flavor, nothing standing out. Just a strong, sweet brew. Full body, smooth, a bit syrupy.

Dark copper color pour with bright ruby highlights and little head. Lots of sweet dark fruit with healthy notes of toffee, cardamom, anise, leather, tobacco and alcohol. Super rich decadent malty dark fruit flavor with lots of caramel, brandy, cinnamon, anise, and a hint of leather. Sticky, full body with low carbonation. If I didn’t know better I’d swear this was a nice 4 or 5 year Thomas Hardy’s. Fantastic stuff.

Bottle shared by hopsleeroy. Thanks Lee! Pours dark reddish. Smell is lightly spiced and very malty. Taste is the same and is quite sweet and slightly spiced. Didn’t care for it.