Stoudts Blonde Double Mai-bock

Brewed by Stoudts Brewing Co.
Style: Heller Bock
Adamstown, Pennsylvania USA

Tap @ Stoudt’s. Clear pale amber, very slightly clovey/spicy with honey, cherries, & malt in the mix. Too sweet for me and I usually don’t care for this style, but this one was interesting, even though I don’t wish to drink it again.

Bottle: Blonde? This is an orange beer with a medium head. Moderately alcohol-based flavors with a bit of spice, almost a nutmeg aspect, almost cinamon? Different beer.

12 oz. bottle courtesy of RLB. poured a golden amber with a smallish head. a very smooth and rich flavor of honey, caramel and a hint of pepper. if available in my area, could easily be a spring-time session beer. Thanks Rich!

Pours a nice golden color. Aroma is yeasty, malty blend. Flavor is a sweetish malt, with a little dough-yeastiness thrown in and maybe a trace of hops. A nice brew, but nothing remarkable.

on tap. really not to special aroma of sweaty sweet nutsack mpy bad but thid beer doesnt have the major taste or nothin its alright not stoudts best outting... an it look rather dirty blonde...

Bottle. Pours a clear golden with white a head. You can tell this baby is filtered. Aroma of lager yeast, honey, and some faint candy fruityness. Strong lager yeastiness in the flavor, along with some honey, vanilla, offset buy the hops (Noble obviously). The balance was a little strange, but this got more enjoyable as I finished it. Overall, very good. I liked that this one was bold without being too heavy.

Bottle. Best before: 08/28/06. Different label than that in the picture. A copper pour with a small, fizzy light-tan head. The aroma is all bready malts, caramel and honey. Thin to medium-bodied, yet smooth and liqueur-like. Tastes like it smells - full of bready malts and caramel with some honey near the end. A hint of warming alcohol in the finish. A solid bock.

Draught stein at Sunset Grill on 4/27/06
Initial appearance is just stunning. Brassy-gold body, with a strong blood-orange-flesh highlight, glassy clarity, with a staunchly retained off-white head that creates minor lacing. Medium-sized bubbles rise fairly quickly.
Very strong honey tones are almost immediately noticeable. In front of that, you must get through strong bocky yeastiness, bready munich-like malts and light, fluffy vanilla notes. But warming and breathing both allow candy-like white sugars and honey coated, mushy graham crackers to strongly assert themselves. But the yeast never leaves, far from it, as it continues to give jabs of zesty, spicy-sour yeastiness. Hops are soily, hay-like and oily, creating a very to-style like bitterness.
The flavor is very strong yeastiness. Where I would have expected to see more sweet malts up front, the plant-like and herbal bitterness is carried on a moderate, quick carbonation that delivers the crisp, spicy yeast and bitter hops and then recedes as honey, melanoidins and a fair amount of breadiness quickly balance the front. Low filtration really helps keep things supple and allows the malt flavor to shine, without having to overdo the sweetness. Alcohol is not apparent in nose or flavor. Perhaps a bit too sweet and with some looseness on the finish, but that’s more a draught issue than a brewing issue. If this stuff was unfiltered in a bottle, I’d imagine it to be better in texture.