Mendocino Eye of the Hawk Select Ale

Brewed by Mendocino Brewing Company
Style: American Strong Ale
Hopland, California USA

Pours an amber with not much visible carbonation/head. Nose is malty. Flavors are hard to discern. I thought this was a pretty vacant beer, not much to offer. I kept hoping maybe something would change as the beer warmed but taste remained consistently nada. Thanks to Secret Santa (July) for the bottle.

Pours a dark amber color. Earthy grass aroma. Flavors of earthy malts, fruit, and some caramel with a strong alcohol bite. Sometimes I like a little alcohol bite, but this just isn’t good. It’s really not that bad, but this brewery didn’t do a good job of covering the alcohol.

Poured from bottle to snifter, it had a dark amber color with a moderately lasting tan head. Aroma was suprisingly delicate for a "big" beer; displaying light, herbal hops and mild, toasty malts. The flavor was a little bit of a letdown, but not bad. It was yeasty malts, with a some booze. Fairly sharply carbonated.

In the bottle. Pours reddish amber with a decent ecru-colored head. Medium head size and carbonation. A clear pour with no bottle yeast. The aroma is of a strong malt liquor. Alcohol and mild hops appear in the nose. The flavor is strong and predominantly an alcohol burn. A light roasted malt can be discerned. Finish has a strong bitter bite. This beer burns all the way down the gullet. It seems like a prohibition ale without the adjuncts. Strong residual flavoring hop bitterness is on the tongue throughout this beer. The alcohol is just too unbalanced. This is a brutal beer.

From 12oz Bottle. Pours a transparent golden orange color with a thin wisp of white head. The aroma is a hoppy bouquet of earthy cedar cones and a touch of caramel sugary sweetness. Medium bodied, crisply carbonated body with an initial sugary sweetness that melts away to a grassy hops finish. Some apricot brandy alcoholic notes are quite noticable as well.

From the bottle.

Pours orange amber with a small head. The aroma is a blend of grassy (Saaz) and citric (Cascade) hops with plenty of caramel as well. The flavor is richly malted, with plenty of dark dried fruit, some almond, a nod of pepper, and a backbite of hops that is eased in gently with a barleywine-like orange-honey sweetness on the short side of the finish.

The yeasts don’t do it for me here; for whatever reason, the beer tastes as if it should be augmented with belgian yeast flavors and instead we get a more typical west coast strong ale yeast component. The mouthfeel is rich, thick, almost syrupy, with easily apparent alcohol.

Tolerable, nice even, but not unusually good.

Pours a crystal clear amber-orange hue with a paper thin, wispy white head. Initial aroma seems somewhat unusual combining a noticable musty/earthy smell with some background caramel, raisin, green apple and fresh yeast along with perhaps some adjunct corn and/or rice. Just a bit of the Saaz, and to a lesser extent Cascade hops can be detected in the nose also. Mouthfeel is moderately full with a pleasant fine carbonation. A definite malty, bready, fruity sweetness is the initial flavor detected quickly followed by a somewhat raw, harsh hop bitterness mid-palate to finish (maybe thay should can the Cluster hops, YUK!). The alcohol presence is well noted, seeming heftier than the 8% listed. For $6.99/six its a good deal, but not something I would re-visit regularly

Pours deep amber with a small off-white head. The aroma is caramel, some grapefruit and a touch of nuts. The flavor is slightly sweet, lots of caramel, some fruit. Medium body.