Hair of the Dog Adam

Brewed by Hair of the Dog Brewing Company
Style: Traditional Ale
Portland, Oregon USA

Big head on a nice and dark ale. Very rich, fruity and woody aromas. Dates are all over this. Way smoky in the mouth, rich and with a tingle toward the finish. Very oaky, smoked and roasted. Pretty lovely int e mouth really. I’m really impressed by the texture and flavour so perfectly roasted and smoky with a great underlying sweet maltiness. BAM, this is good.

Bottle. Pours dark brown with a small tan head. It has a very intense aroma with lots of raisins, figs and alcohol, but also rock candy and sweet malt. Flavour is roasted malt, caramel, raisins and figs. It has a heavy alcoholic finish with notes of bitter chocolate. High carbonation.

Batch 73. Pours deep, deep brown, almost black, with hints of crimson. Super thick and persistent head, light tan. Nose is muted to me, I think I have allergies today. Bourbon, earthy rich, tobacco and leather. Palate is soft and creamy, mouth-coating but not extremely heavy. Dark fruit compote, dates, plum. Not quite as much depth and length as I’d have expected, and the heat lingers, warmingly. I love HoTD, but for some reason its not quite there. I do love it though.

Batch 73 bottle. Appearance – WOW. Here is a prime example of a HotD brew: I poured a little too aggressively, and so in my Deschutes tulip pint there sits about 5 oz. of Adam and the rest of the glass filled with chunky, rocky, off white creamy head. This head is going nowhere, it has been 5 minutes and that head has damn near subsided 0%. Bottle-conditioning, oh how I love you! The beer itself is a dark brown with ruby reddish brown edges. This is awesome. Smell – Dark fruits, lots of figs, leather, smoke, even some oaky scents. Taste – Lots of smoke and oak. This tastes like I am drinking a camp fire. The taste is a lot like the smell, yet a lot sweeter. Sweet malty goodness; this thing is a malt bomb from hell. The alcohol is definitely present in this young example too. Mouthfeel – This isn’t too thick at all, but it still manages to linger on your tongue and remind you exactly what you are drinking long after taking a sip. Drinkability – This is actually pretty difficult to drink. The flavors are so intense and in your face it really hits you hard. I am sure this will mellow very well over time and become an extremely awesome beer with complexity that is rivaled by close to none. I am guessing this would go great with a real campfire on a cold Eastern Oregon night.

Bottle, batch 71. Pours a slightly hazy dark amber, small, light tan head. Aroma is ripened fruit and some malt. Flavor is again ripened fruit, malt and some very vague notes of chocolate and smoke. Finish is just mildly bitter, flavors hang on the palate for awhile.

Rating # 17 from the danish beer festival 2009. Hazy dark orange with a light brown head. Aroma is fruity and complex with some heavy caramel malty notes and a light roastyness. Flavor of plums with some light smoked tobacco, sweet chocolate and caramel. Good

Rating 1200. Bottle with thanks to scrizzz. Pours a medium to dark brown with lots of fizzy bubbles clinging to the side of the glass and a small tan head. Aromas are decent enough... a bit of brown sugar and leather, a touch of fruit and a whiff of pine from time to time. Maybe there is something wrong with me, but I was expecting this to be a little more transcendental... don’t get me wrong, this is very good... still... Anyhow, the chocolate is definitely there, with a little bit of piney hops in the finish. It is pretty mellow in between, though. Kind of a brown sugar and plum thing before the bitter finish takes over.

Pours out black with lots of brown head. Taste is sweet, creamy, and roasty. Flavors of dark fruits, caramel, lots of malt and hops with some alcohol. Thick and complex, lots of flavors.Nice sweet but bitter finish. Slight warming from the booze. Great Barleywine style ale.