Left Hand Smoked Goosinator Doppelbock

Brewed by Left Hand Brewing Co.
Style: Smoked
Longmont, Colorado USA

Thanks to Dragonstout for this. Pours a watery burgundy with a thick tan head. Bacon, smoked sausage, malt aroma. Smoke smooth malt taste with hints of sweetness. Very nice smooth and soda like (smoked coke??)

Courtesy DragonStout. 2007 vintage. Pours a hazy, rusty brown color. A small, foamy, cream colored film leaves minimal, sudsy, spotty lacing behind. The nose is comprised of a sweet caramel malt background with a smoked sausage overtone and mildly floral hops. The flavor follows suit, with sweet, smoked caramel being balanced by lightly bitter, spicy, floral hops. Pretty simple and straightforward, but fairly well executed. Medium-plus body, with a good portion of the bulk coming from the sugary malts. Just a little too sweet for my liking, but still very drinkable.

Weeee! Bottle courtesy Dragonstout. Really pleasant greasy smoked summer sausage aroma. Pale copper, lightly hazy. Smooth sweet and smoky with just a slight tart tang in the finish, which approaches being semi-dry, surprising for a doppelbock base. Fainy spicy peppery character in the background. Hops show up just as a tingle of balancing bitterness.

Bottle. Hazy red brown with beige head. Malt with quite heavy smoke. Caramel and smoked meat? Anyway, the smoke dominates a bit too much. Low bitterness.

Bottle. 75cl. [Tasting @ Ølbaren, Copenhagen]. Alc. 7.2%. Unclear amber color with a average, frothy, good lacing, mostly lasting, beige head. Aroma is moderate malty, roasted, moderate to light heavy smoke ala special bamberg. Flavor is moderate sweet and bitter with a average to long duration. Body is medium, texture is oily, carbonation is soft. (110308)

small forming head with dark ruby color, very cloudy in the pour. Very intense smell of smoked meats. Very strong taste in smoked pork with a touch of caramel in the after taste very lingering smokiness to it.

Pour is rich dark molasses ruby amber with a thin sticky tan head...smell is strongly smokey and smoked beef...taste is smoky at first, with sausage flavors....then it gets crisply bright and sweet with caramel...finish is lingerlingly smoky as the smoke comes back...

Popping the top let out a misty fog that apparated in the bottle followed by some bubbles growing up the neck. The pour is a creamy brown. The light brown head actively jumps to the top of the glass and stayed strong for approximately 5 minutes. Then it slowly settled down from it’s initial defiant demeanor. Holding up to the light surprisingly reveals a deep yet vibrant ruby red color that scampers back into hiding behind the brown when taken away from the light.

The aroma hits me with a sweet nuttiness at first. The second whiff reveals a slight tangyness in the back of the throat. I makes me think of walking in old woods right after a rainstorm and coming upon an old abandoned beautiful wood house.

The flavor first thickly crawls out of the glass with a dark woody sensation. The word ’Smoked’ from the beer name become immediately apparent. Flavors of nuts come through with the exhale after the swallow. I get a touch of ’old caramel peanut brittle in a bowl at grandmas house’ with the third sip. Very tasty. I’m still too early in my beer rating career to have familiarity with malty flavors. But I’m assuming the caramel syrupy effect I’m feeling is from malt.

The palate is very horizontal - meaning that the way it starts out is the way it ends. There are no roller coasters with the way this beer feels. It is rock solid. Just the right amount of carbonation to even out the syrupy sense of this beer.

Nothing hits me as fresh with this beer. It all feels like how your grandfather has been using the same pan to make potatoes for 40 years and refuses to try a different way; just because the way he settled on is perfect. The emotions I get from this beer are aged, calculated, well thought out, and practiced. I really enjoy this beer. It’s not a style that I’m into right now, but it is still extremely enjoyable. My wife thinks it tastes like bacon (she’s vegetarian). One last note - the cork was impossible to get out.