Holsten Festbock

Brewed by Holsten-Brauerei (Carlsberg)
Style: Dunkler Bock
Hamburg, Germany

500 mL can from the LCBO, served cold in a tulip glass. MR09/07

App.: Clear, medium-cola, with reddish hues and a tight tan head. Aroma: Metallic, a bit of resinous hops, sweet toffee and caramel, some rye bread. Nicht so gut. Palate: Medium-full body, a little syrupy, fairly full carbonation. Flav.: Cardboard, pepper, fairly dry, some of the piney/resinous hops, and a bit of burnt sugar. Finished like my father’s favourite foods: alcohol and rye bread.

Nein, danke! Gibt mir ein besser Bier.

This bock poured a dark brown colour with a tan coloured foamy head. A little caramel to the nose along with the scent of coffee and slight burnt hint. First sip is a little syrupy with the flavour of molasass and caramel. Finish is malty with burnt flavours....right through to the palate.

500ml can, shared with VeloVampire - The biggest lesson I learned from this beer is, don’t keep drinking when you are already drunk. Anyways, it’s dark amber/copper with a small, quickly dissipating off-white head. Aroma is of dark malt, quite sweet and slightly bready. Boozy as well. Taste is pretty much the same - boozy, bready, with sweet, vaguely caramely malts making up the flavour profile. Not great, and way too alcoholic in the mouth. I think I wanted to drink this just to get it out of my fridge. Oh yeah, also from my scrawled notes: sweeety sitilbs.

From a can. Malt and coffee aroma. Pours with a dark brown hue and an off white head. Highly carbonated. Very malty flavour with coffee and dark chocolate notes. The alcohol content is noticable in the finish.

looked nice, aroma of malt, and a tiny bit of sweetness. flavour, malt, and booze. doesn’t hide the 7% at all. some redeeming caramel malts in the flavour, but meh.

Clear mahogany body, large off-white head with medium retention and very good lacing. Looks great. Aroma is peppery and dry wood. Not bad so far. Taste was a let-down. The main problem is the way-too-watery body. A touch of molasses, a touch of caramel, a touch of raisins, somewhat grassy and earthy. Doesn’t sound too bad when I re-read myself but it wasn’t very tasty and the watery body didn’t support the flavours. Festbock maybe, feast of a bock certainly not.

50 cl can, Shelburne. Dark brown with a thin beige head. Malt aroma, burnt malt with a very sweet taste, not as strong alcohol flavour for the strength. Minimal aftertaste, nice bitterness and warm finish.

Tasted horrible. Strong, dry and pissy flavour. Tasted very metallic (can may have contributed to this), and fizzy. Didn’t like it from the start. Not buying again.