Pours a deep brown, topped by a short cap of soft, dark tan foam. The head reduces to a ring and a smattering of bubbles on the top. Decent lacing. Malty aroma, full of bittersweet chocolate and a little bread - reminding me of chocolate babka bread from Breadsmith. And I love that stuff. There’s mild fruit and spice in the background of the aroma if you look for it. Full chocolate malt flavor, both sweet and bittersweet, with toffee, plum, and a little rum punch kicker in the finish. Fantastic stuff. Very nice mouthfeel - velvety smooth, prominent yet soft carbonation, and a great alcohol burn after the fact.

This beer won Silver medal at the Real Ale Cask Ales in Chicago for dopplebocks last year, although this was the tap version, none-the-less I know why. Yummy sweet chocolate! Color is a very deep brown with infused mahogany reddish edges. Small but thickly tight and creamy cocoa brown head. Aroma is darkly sweet with malts and chocolate, a very interesting blend of chocolate anf dark fruits of banana and dulled dark cherry with slight touches of molasses, toffee, and raisin. Taste is fantastic; smooth, thick, and creamy with a great carry over from the smell. Again the tastes blend well together of sweet milk chocolate and dark fruits, mostly banana with some molasses, dark toffee, and toches of raisin and cherry. Very interestingly yummy! A puree of fruits and chocolate. Silky smooth fell thats nearly full and has a fairly calm carbonation lending some excellent quaffability. Darn good stuff. Many samples at Winterfest in St. Paul 2004.

Minneapolis (new recipe with weyerman caramunich, caravienne, special B and 100 percent hallertrau.) Semi-translucent and murky chocolate chestnut brown in color with a creamy tan wrung hugging the edges of the glass like froth to a saucepan. Chocolate diligence draws on a mild cocoa character while hitting rolled and toasted pecans along the way. Medium baked brownies meet a darker, earthen element akin to toasted wood chips cooled with a light pool of chocolate. It’s a predictor of sweet flavorful fulfillment to come. And it’s there, with an omnipotent chocolate caramel tract weaving between full, high alcohol embodiment. Tame, balanced and bright, with a mocha cocoa complexity that only further reinforces its chocolatey balanced formulation. Caramelized pralines take on a dusty hazelnut sweetness with a tiny injection of batter saturated pistachios. Gentle carbonation and palatable alcohol primeness make a perfect match with caramel infused Tollhouse cookie dough tubes. Chewy yet low in the FG department. Beers like this can either make or break a brewer. Here’s to one hell of a vote for this brewery’s new brewer and his natural inclinations and incantations.

A pre-release growler. how nice. Not as nice as a bottle-conditioned sample like some people get...sigh...Anyway... Pours from the growler a deep russet brown, with a slim, disappearing head (looked bigger on pre-release pints my pals enjoyed this afternoon...maybe it’s the glass I’ve employed)... Aroma is rich and sweet, toffeeish, deep with malt, and, frankly, delicious...a most sublime candy bar, melted down, and whipped up for us to enjoy, very likable, hell, lovable! Thick entry on the mouth, slick, supremely tasty, malt-tastic, I say, the very key to happiness, found in a beer glass. Caramel is here, too, all the sweet malts at work...and the intoxication starts it’s course... Mouthfeel is nice and mild, sweet, but never too much so, lighty drying off in the finish, leaving every new sip and suckle all the more satisfying. A wonderful shock of fantastic taste greets one anew. Goes down with ease, though the booze factor jumps and demands to be noticed...not too hard, but it slows down appreciation. This is a kind creation of Mr. Haug, a well-appreciated doppel, and I’m glad I finally got a

Dark dark brown in color with a nice cap of foarm. Served in a brandy snifter. Chocolate aroma with a thick chocolate body and a portish characteristic though the alcohol was very pronounced.