New Belgium Devils Advocate

Formerly brewed at New Belgium Brewing Company
Style: American Strong Ale
Fort Collins, Colorado USA

An unclear orange beer with a small white head. The aroam is very sweet and spicy, while the flavor is sweet and very spicy combined with lesser notes of yeast and alcohol.

Tap @ Toronado. Golden color with a diminished white head. I picked up vanilla and toffee flavors. Neither a powerful aroma nor flavor but a good drinkin’ beer. Clean and smooth.

GABF 2004. Great marketing story, but not a great product. I couldn’t get over the skunk in the aroma and the flavor. It masked all the wonderful malt that was accidentally added. Nice body, and there was a nice hoppy finish, but overall unenjoyable.

Tasted at the StrongAlefest. Dark, very matly in the aroma. Somewhat festive in the flavor. A little citrus, spicy, sweet and a little dark fruit quality. Finish is clean and fairly smooth. An interesting beer I’m glad they brought it down, at least for something diffferent.

Draft at brewery (GABF time): Dark golden with some haze; thinnish head. Kind of thickish and heavy on the tongue. Malts definitely take the stage ... grainy, husky and bready. Notes of musty yeast and a milk-like sweetness. Decent amount of hop bitterness, but not quite enough, IMO. No high / fusels to complain about. Definitely warming. An interesting "accident," but it lacks charisma or depth.

This comes out the color of yellow pine, a few years worn. Light. Little head, no lace. Smells of barleycorn, and light barley malt. It strikes me as a little musty, like a new camembert. Barley chew, yeah. A hop flower then the alcohol cuts over everything. Whoa, it’s sweet. It’s like beer hard candy. Umm. There’s some decent hop dryness to this that comes about after a few sips. That chewy barley strikes some nuttiness, pine nuts, raw virginia peanuts. The alcohol provides quite a bite. My wife loved this. I liked it. I could sip this for a good long while with friends.

Draught. Head is fully diminishing. Body is medium yellow. Aroma is lightly malty (grain), trace hops (flowers), moderately yeasty (dough, sweat), with a fairly strong note of wort. Flavor is moderately sweet, lightly acidic, lightly bitter. Finish is lightly sweet, lightly acidic, moderately bitter, unclean. Medium to full body, watery/syrupy texture, lively carbonation, moderately alcoholic. Good grief, what a joke...smells mostly of unfermented malt and stinky yeast, and those elements come in strong in the aftertaste. It’s frightening how bad NB beers have been getting lately, including ones that I used to think were pretty good. This is undrinkably bad, and embarrassing, quite frankly.

Sampled @ Falling Rock, GABF weekend. Murky orange and brown color... smells a little like liquid malt extract syrup... lots of wheat and barley aromas, grainy nose almost. Flavor is really just LME, grains, cereals, etc.