Penn St. Nikolaus Bock Bier

Brewed by Pennsylvania Brewing Company
Style: Dunkler Bock
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA

12 oz bottle, 2006 version. Pours to a beautiful, bright, chestnut color, with a thick, creamy, white head, and a good bit of carbonation. The nose on this beer is fantastic with lots of good aromas of toasty and nutty malt. The palate is firm, with lots of good toasty and nutty malt flavor, on a polished, smooth, round body. This beer finishes with more fantatic clean and malty flavors up front, then ends with the perfect amount of herbal hop bitterness, and some sooth alcohol to balance. A very impressive bock bier, with fantastic malt character. A perfect beer to enjoy over the Christmas season.

Draft. Dark amber/brown apperance. The aroma was rich and roasted, that’s where the good things about this beer start and end. Brew had a start and finish. The flavor was a weird mix of spices that finished with a strange roasted tart finish.

12 ounce bottle in pint glass. Deep reddish amber color with no head and little gas. Nearly flat for some reason. Brown sugarish grassy aroma. Malty brown sugarish earthy flavor with medium bitter finish. Medium body, regrettably low carbonation. Would be decent if more carbonated.

Medium brown body, honey at bottom and cranberry at top. Eggshell head, quick dissipation. Smells lager hops, oats. Carbonated, tootsie roll, sweet, pencil shavings, corn. True to style, but hops are a little weird.

Drank with Stegosaurus and Beereded_one at Newton brew fest. This was decent. Malty caramel aroma with a nice dark brown color. Roasted malt flavor. Overall not bad.

Slightly spicy with warm alcohol and chewy malts. . .take note, this hits a bit harder than it appears. Citrusy, sticky finish. Quite nice.

There is so much talk here about over- and under-rated breweries. Oftentimes, folk say that Stone is underated. Well, they are not. They are great. It is just a matter of how great they are. Not so with Penn. These fellows were pioneers and nobody gives them their proper due. UNTIL NOW. In any event, St. Nikolaus is real Bock. If you like this, you like Bock. If you like Bock, you like this. This is not Maibock. It is not Doppelbock. It is straight Bock and it is excellent. Perfect level of richness, perfect level of sweetness. The only fault I can find is as follows: with Penn’s Dark, its Oktoberfest, and its Maerzen, each present a strange and special flavor that sort of sets it apart. This beer is sort of right down the line. And what’s more, it held up nicely, for I am sure it was brewed several months ago.

Kind of a weak malt nose. A little sweetness. Looks a dark ruby color with a big frothy off-white color head. Tastes pretty good. A good blend of a few different malt taste with some tasty spices in the finish.