HeBrew Jewbelation Twelve

Shmaltz Brewing Company
Brewed at Olde Saratoga Brewing (Mendocino Brewing Co.)
Style: American Strong Ale
San Francisco, California USA

Thin head of brown bubbles. Quite dense. Wow, the aroma is wafting across the table to me. Smells awesome! Rich malty aroma with lots of dark roasted malts, black cherry, sweet caramel and some cocoa. Color is a very dark brown. Rich and roasty. Loaded with malts, more black cherry, raisins, prunes, toffee and some burnt candy sugar. Very complex flavor. Oily palate and smooth as butter. Noticable alcohol but is hidden VERY well for a 12’er. Finishes strong roasty and malty. Light bitterness but is really overshadowed by the thick syrupy malts. A pretty damn good brew.

Wow. Another huge, rich, beast of a beer. Well balanced and strong. Malty sweetness and tangy hops in a beautiful marriage of extremes that still manages to be smooth. Better than 11. On par with 10. Very good!

Not bad for a contract brew! Crude oil on the pour with little head but a nice fading effect. Sweet anise and cocoa dominate the taste with hints of hops. Lots of alcohol at the finish and a lingering malt flavour. I have to admit I bought this out of curiosity.

Dark brown with a lasting off-whiyte head. Aroma of caramel, toffee, dried fruits and licorice. Sweet flavour of burnt caramel, with fruit and a little alcohol.

Bottle. Dark plum colored body. Nose: boozy amaretto/brandy with some semi-sweet black plum and milk chocolate scented malt. Body: thick, excessively chewy and resinous. Flavor is a mix of chocolate malt and plum/cherry skin (not sweet) with noticeable char in the finish. Decent.

Enjoyed from a 22oz bottle in a whiskey snifter. The beer pours a deep brown to just about black, with a tan head. Deep malty notes come through initially in the nose, giving hints of almost doppelbock-like richness. These fall away to more espresso-like characters. A touch of west coast hops come through as well, but these are pretty thoroughly dominated by the malt characters. The palate is full and flavorsome. Initial malt complexity falls away to a more roasty and burnt character. The finish is relatively sweet, and lingers for a minute or two. Overall, perhaps a touch too roasty, but a very well done Imperial Stout.

The appearance is opaque red-black. No head. Consistency of red wine, color of tar. Some dark red in the light. The smell is black licorice, heavy cherry flavored cough syrup. Grape skins and gritty barley. The taste is cough syrup, cherry flavored. Some overly sweet sugary malts (like a winter ale) brown sugar and heavy sweet molasses. Very cloyingly sweet at the swallow. Full of flavor but just too sweet. The Feel is thick and smooth like motor oil. It’s a slooow sipper. Mellows as it warms up, but still too thick and dark for anything more than 8oz at a time. Needs a bitter balance. ****I corked half of this 22oz bottle and re-tried it about two days later and the flavor gets a lot better. It turned into a chocolatey Kahlua flavor, and with none of the overbearing cherry sweetness. My advice: buy it, open it, cork it, drink it.

Bomber from Martha’s Vineyard in Grand Rapids Michigan. This was a dark and funky beast. Certainly powerful from the first aroma. It had piles of malt with the faintest whiff of hops but the overall mixture was both complex and inviting. On the tongue the beer is thick and flavourful. No subtleties here. You get malty and chewy underpinnings to a wonderfully subtle hop attack. I can’t really put my finger on particular characteristics but the dark color and overall integration did well to hide the alcohol. Interesting and mysterious beer. Would certainly recommend.