Kuhnhenn Fourth Dementia Old Ale

On tap. Aroma is intense caramel, licorice, candy, and roast malts. WOW!! Deep red hue with a tan head that left great lace. Flavor is just amazing. Caramel, candy, a little hops, and roasted malts. Sweet and sticky but well balanced with just the right amount of bitterness. Full bodied with a medium finish. The best beer from Kuhnhenn IMHO.

WOW. Tap GTMW 2008 A few samples. The only beer I had more than one sample of at the fest. Sweet fruit, dark caramel, some higher alcohol. My notes say: Like gummy bears on crack. This beer is very sweet and cloying in a totally pleasurable way. I love this beer.

Pours a deep, clear, reddish brown with a thin cap and ring. Decent spotty lacing throughout. Aroma full of plums and alcohol. Super complex flavors here: Molasses, plum, lots of toffee, rum, and licorice. Then I find a hint of bitter chocolate. A little oak, a little dry earthy spice, and more licorice in the finish. Unlike a lot of brewpub old ales, this one isn’t sicky sweet. I wonder how well it ages? Hmmm... This is a full bodied, minimally carbonated sipper of a beer. Why anyone would choose brandy over this is beyond me. On a chilly rainy night, I sat down by the woodstove and entered the fourth dementia, with a twelve ounce bottle that lasted well over an hour. Served at cellar temp in an oversized balloon shaped wine glass. Great great beer.

Bottle: brewed on 8/01/04. Rich sweet, malty, hoppy aroma like a barley wine. My bottle of fourth dementia says 11% ABV, not 9.5% like this page says. Dark, reddish amber; uniformly murky. Exquisite color. Small off-white, almost tan head that is mostly and quickly diminishing. Not much lace. I wont detract on the head or lace due to the high ABV. Upon the pour I wasn’t sure there would be any head. It took awhile for the carbonation to fight its way through the thick churning liquid to the top to form a head. I was trying to figure out what beer to start with tonight between this, Dark Horse Special Resever Black Bier, Founders Breakfast Stout, DFH Immort or New Holland the Poet. I wanted to start out light and work my way up. I guess this wasn’t the beer I thought it would be. Most definitely a barley wine in character. Very rich and flavorful. Extremely well done. I love it when I travel some place, do my research, and it pays dividends like this. Caramel and chocolate notes. I love the fact that the label posts its "best before" date as 2010! As far as descriptions, Jacob Lövenlund pretty much hits it on the head.

On draught in 2004, brewed in 2003. Pours a murky brown very dark with some dark orange and even some auburn hues. Muddy looking, very hazy with a huge yellowish/creamy head. Very appealing. The aroma is magnificent as well, big dark fruit (raspberries, prunes, black cherries). Chocolate and some lovely english style hops. Light brown sugar hints. Flavor tastes much like the aroma, starts out soft, warm, velvety and has a lovely rich sweet brown sugar tasting malt. This develops in to some ripe fruit complemented by some lightly bitter hops. Chocolate, cherries, prunes, caramel all come to mind. Full body, very low carbonation. Finish has a touch of dry barley flavor and though the brewer thought this was more like a barleywine, I actually thought this was a tremendously done old ale, just bigger and more flavorful than say Old Peculiar or Goose Island X-Mas. What really ties it to this category is that bittersweet taste right as it finishes; a fruity, yet dry yeastiness, just slightly sour. Perfect! An Imperial Old Ale?? Haha, perhaps.