Draught pint at the brewery with Muzzlehatch on 3/11/06
Deep milk-chocolate brown, with some lighter hay-yellow highlights and much a muddy sea through the middle, but the colors lighten on the edges and the clarity becomes only lightly cloudy. Head is intially full and beige on this one, but again, it recedes fairly steadily to a ring, with only a film left on the glass.
Smells of thick yeast, heavy caramelized sugars and some buttercream, with some light almond/hazelnuttiness and a sour, munich-like maltiness on the end. Moderate strength.
Upon first sip, it’s quite a bit to take in. Another heavy (dare I say TOO unfiltered) texture places thick, caramelized malts all over the palate, while a light bit of honey mixes with graham cracker sweetness and then wanes yeasty. Too much yeast, yet not nearly enough attenuation (some type of sugar addition perhaps). I don’t know if this one still aimed for the "Mexican Coffee", there were light coffee notes from the darker brown malts, I suppose, but it just plasters the palate with sugars and yeast and does come off a bit worty.
I was really hoping for a Vienna, which this seems to be nothing like. No alcohol apparency, low to moderate carbonation, chewy, sugary texture.

OK, so this is supposed to be a "spiced" Vienna; this is supposed to have a subtle combination of "Mexican coffee" spicing (cinnamon, white pepper, chocolate etc) to complement the malty smokiness of the basic Vienna recipe. Except this is being consumed in an airless, smoky, dank pub where its impossible to get any subtleties of anything. Maybe a hint, if you put all of your limited cranial capacity into it. Nnnahh the beer ain't worth it. Next please.