Thomas Hooker Liberator Doppelbock

Brewed by Thomas Hooker Brewing Company
Style: Doppelbock
Bloomfield, Connecticut USA

1 Liter Swing-top Bomber: First off, the bottle is superb. When you pour this one it is an opaque brown color. There is a bit of a tan head. Decent lacing. The first thing that hits the nose is some roastiness: I didn't expect this much in a doppelbock. There is sweetness in the nose also. Caramel, fruits, and maybe a hint of smokiness? The flavor is rich and full. The roastiness is there, but there is a ton of other flavors in here. Complex and extremely tasty. Their beers just keep on getting better with each release.

As good as it gets when it comes to doppelbocks. Dark red in color with subtle aroma of german malts? and caramel. Great malty flavor with lager characteristics to balance. Creamy and med-full bodied. Well done.

Had a few of the large bottles. They aged like a fine wine! After about a month they had a nice snooth flavor.

Poured dark brown with hints of some reddish brown with a medium sized tan head and nice lacing on the glass. Aroma of plums, nuts, roasty and toasty malt, and that standard lagerish finish. Dry, roasted malt, chocolate, mocha and sweet chocolate. Very nice, creamy, full, mouthfeel. A real winner.

Appearance is terminaly opaque, fully black, much more impressive than your everyday doppelbock, with a large, lush head, with resilient, creamy froth, very appealing, setting standards high from this auspicious image. Aroma is fresh, full of yeast, malt, doughy, even, cookie-dough, can we say? Bread, ginger, and other spices, but still light, airy, creamy, very eggnoggy, and very, very nice. Taste is complex and delicious, a wonderful blend, with an excellent presence in the mouth, a masterful marriage of beery parts, perfectly blended, nothing lacks or wants, nothing weighs heavy, either. Chocolate and dark fruit dominate the palate, with palpable malt on the mouthfeel, a sturdy, even tenacious presence occurs on the tongue and parts of the senses. Starts to feel a touch like brandy, even port wine, with nutty, cocoa flavors never far behind, getting even a bit candyish, with a hint of licorice. I’ve had several dopelbocks in my day,each a bit of it’s own, some good, some great, and I even had the Andescher before this sample, and you know what? I have to say, TH knocks the socks off the competition, anyway, anywhere, anyhow! It’s just got so much more, and then some! Best doppelbock I’ve ever had, when all is told, just a great sum of it’s parts!

Thin to medium blackness with crimson brown lit edges. Stocky, firm, billowing, dark sandy brown cap grows at a wonderfully slow pace to a thick despenseful foam of chocolate milk bubbly froth. Dense thickness proceeds to keep its position whilst engaging the liquid. The lacing is placed in creamy patches. Aroma is delicate and lofty with a robust tangy malt base heeding to molasses and dark cherry/plum. Sensitive dark chocolate cookies and toasted spiced breads linger over the top with some nuts, cinnamon, seasame, and fresh clove. Turns a bit woodsy and oily after its been sitting along with a note of farmhouse yeasty must. The delicacies this has on the nose are outstanding. Its no beast mind you. Its soft and frail to the point of memory. Lovely! Taste has a big malty start with a large portion of molasses and dark cherry bringing a sweet intial shock to the palate. Loaded and full of high and sweet tang. Levels off after some time in the glass and after the first few minutes of sipping. Middle reveals a slight chocolate underlay with a cookie dough sweetness keeping it a tad buttery and vanillafied. Turns darker with roasty malts and slight smokey earth as the chocolate helps lead away from the intial tang of sweetness. Finish smooths out with more delicate mannerisms then the front and middle. Nicely melded spices of nuts, cinnamon, ginger, herbal hops, and fig cross and mend the rest of it together as it floats off with a ghostly dignified dryness. It grows in complexity, which is by far the most intriguing thing about this beer. Sip to sip it keeps bringing more fragile layers within. Body of this beer is huge. Continuingly full. Big on malts with tang at first, then toast and roast, then spices and smoothness. Has a unique Belgian-like crispness in with the tangy front that twists and drops into smoothened silky rich wonderment of malt complexities and airy spice. Wow, what a ride! This doesn’t seem like 8% at all, it has a much bigger presense, without any alcoholic hints what so ever. The drinkabilty is a bit more slowed down and appreciable. A damn fine Dopple.

2004 Bottle Date, Sampled December 2004.
Well Santa delivered this 1 liter bottle of liquid bread, that I have been wanting to try for quite some time. This beer pours an opaque dark amber-brown color. The head is thick and creamy, whipped to an almost mousse like consistency. As I pour the richest, most enticing, malty aromas emanate from my glass. It smells malty sweet, with notes of fresh honey baked biscuits, a hint of molasses, almost a subtle spicy quality reminiscent of a dark cake flavored with molasses, concentrated caramel, and hardly a hint of alcohol is found in the nose.

My first sip, notes a satisfying rich, but not too thick body, that is richly sweet, and has notes of chocolate, and a hint of espresso-like roastiness in the finish. It is well carbonated, and the chocolate & subtle roast notes really combine quite well, don’t get me wrong though this is not roasty like a stout or porter, but it has a nice level of bonus roastiness that is not usually found in a Doppelbock. It really adds another dimension on top of the full malty flavors that this beer, and all good Doppelbocks, are redolent of.

I must admit that upon first sip of this beer that I was expecting it to have a fuller, more dense body to it, I have now come to the conclusion that this beer is perfectly situated with the proper heft. The palate is full and creamy, and not so heavy that I will not be able to slowly consume this bottle over the course of my evening. This beer certainly lives up to the monks, oft cited, yet increasingly ignored plan, to create a beer, nah, I mean a liquid bread that will fortify a fasting brother through lent. Yet I cant help but wonder that if I were a monk if I would not feel like this was too easy, it is almost too easy, and satiating, to have a beer such as this to sup on during a period of supposed fasting.

This beer is really smooth and flavorful, it packs a immense amount of malt complexity in each sip, I get notes of caramel, just browned whole wheat toast, a hint of molasses, and sorghum. As it warms up a bit a subtle fruitiness starts to manifest itself, it is funny to me that rich lagers show hints of fruit, which is supposed to be the dominion of the top-dwelling ales, but the concentrated malts in this beer lend it to subtle, yet concentrated fruity notes reminiscent of cherries, figs, quince paste, perhaps a hint of apple butter, and perhaps a bit of dried date as well. I would have to say that, while subtle, the cherry notes are the most dominant fruity notes. And, as the aroma suggested, there are rich notes of dark spice cake here as well.

Even the aroma starts to pick up fruity notes over time, though in this case the dominant notes are a mix of dried fig and dates. What a kick ass beer, I have only finished one glass of the three that I am going to get out of this beer and it has inspired me to pontificate profusely, and certainly quite a bit more than my standard brew review. That in itself should let the reader know that this is a beer worth contemplating, especially on this unusually cold (for a Tucson) night. I am definitely exited and perhaps even giddy (or is that the fact that I have not slept in 36 hours) that I am about to continue my contemplative journey with the middle glass of the three that I am going to enjoy this evening.

My one meager complaint in this absolutely wonderfully malty, malt-lover’s cradled chalice of honeydew is that the far finish has a subtle hint astringent graininess, this really is quite subtle though and only recognizable because I enjoy chewing on malted barley of all shades & flavors. This is one outstanding beer, which certainly has not disappointed me, in typical American fashion, a bit of brash arrogance and rebellion has been added to the traditional Doppelbock malt-bill, but luckily the brewer had the sensibility to not over-hop a beer of this style. Let the malt shine on its on complexities and merit, maltophiles rejoice, and make sure you get a bottle of this as soon as possible.

JJpm74 was kind enough to send me both the 2005 and 2006 versions of this, and they need to be split out, because they are different beers entirely. Having said that, I’ll be rating the 2006 version. The pour was deep brown/black with a nice 3-finger brown head. The aroma was very roasty, caramelly malty, with a lot of dark fruit, some cabernet, and a nice perfumy floral hop component. The flavor was roasty malty, with a creamy mouthfeel, and a lot of nuts, figs, brown sugar, and chocolate syrup. The palate is velvety, smooth, complex, and chocolate syrupy as it warms. Nicely done, and another elite beer from this elite brewer.