Allagash Four

One of the best Allagash beers I’ve ever tried. Nice and dark, warm and comforting. Has a spectacular aroma and appearance. You can tell they really put time into making this one.

She poured murky browns tinged with orange amber highlights. Her khaki head is super-soft, lazily fading into a thin film. She swirls, but to no avail. On the other hand, I appear to have awoken a sleeping giant as her nose lets out a loud bellow and firmly grabs hold of my olfactory senses. Sweet maple and toffee lay next to crunchy cooked honey which has started to cool in the night air. There is a hearty punch of alcohol heat in the back of her nose, but she is quickly subdued by a cornucopia of tropical and fall fruits. Orange and tangerine citric skins bitter and dry with sweet fruity esters of fall red apples plucked from the orchard. Green grass and bales of hay keep me close to the earth while cinnamon sticks, nutmeg, splintered wood, and bulging oak barrels fill out her nose. Divinity has descended unto my glass for I sure have no other explanation for the seemingly limitless bounty of her brown nectar. Seeing as my olfactory senses have been well sated, my lips and palate are begging for their turn. I gleefully oblige. Sweet and sticky bleeds into drying wood, brown spices, and cinnamon while her alcohol warms my breath. My chest is aglow and my tastebuds are smiling; life is good. Thick and mouth-coating without being cloying, sweet maple, toffee, and caramel goodness melts in my mouth, not my hands. Her finish is definitely all about the dry side of her palate, creating the perfect marriage of thirst-quenching and thirst-inducing. Her warmth continues to permeate my body with brown spices, dry wood, and rum soaked barrels resting in fields of wilting hay and grass. Content, I lay my pen down and slowly savor the rest of our time together.

Allagash is one of America’s premier Belgian-style breweries, ranking right up there with Ommegang and a small handful of others who exclusively brew in Belgian tradition. Being the Belgian geek that I am, all is well in my world. The Allagash Four is yet another excellent contribution to their beery portfolio.

Bottle bought at City Market in Vermont. The color is a hazy brown with a thin head. The aroma is of malt spicies and hops. The taste also of malt and fruits like raisins, also the sweetnest of caramel with the added bitterness of hops. The alcool % is noticeable but not overpowering.

Dark brown pour with boisterous frothy off white head. Aroma is loaded with dark fruits such as raisin, plum and fig with the spicy yeast character following close by. Flavor is quite sweet but not cloying. Plum and raisin dominate with brown sugar and a slight molasses note coming through secondarily. Palate is medium to full, and decent for the style. Alcohol presence is not noticeable. Very nice indeed.

Sampled at the Nashville BA tasting. Pours a hazy amber with a light beige head. Aroma of alcohol, yeast, wheat malts, and Belgian esters. Flavor of yeast, apple, lemon, wet grains, and something else I can’t read from my shitty handwriting..butterscotch?? Oh well, not bad, but perhaps past it’s prime.

What an interesting beer. A 750 ml bottle thanks to Santa. Pours a deep copper, almost ruby color with a very large beige head. The aroma is nice; a huge sweet malt presence, lots of yeast and sweet notes. The taste is very unique; a full and sweet malt profile, lots of fruity esters, yeast, dry apples, sugary mixes, a lot of flavor. Somehow, this reminds me of a iced cider and a barley wine mixed together. Not very hoppy, but sweet and very malty. Batch 16.

On tap at Uber. Pours cloudy dark copper with a dense and lacy beige head. Full body minimal carbonation. Sweet nutty brown sugar and malt taste with a fairly assertive finish for a quad. Smooth, balanced and rather nice for an American quad.

Sampled at the Seattle IBF 09. Poured a murky bronze. Very wet - almost a quencher, which was astonishing to me given the 10% abv. It’s malt-driven, but definitely seems more like a malty barleywine than an Abt/Quad. Some wood and brown sugar, and it covers the alcohol very well. Nowhere near worth the price of the bottle, though.