Calumet Bock

Brewed by Rowlands Calumet Brewery
Style: Dunkler Bock
Chilton, Wisconsin USA

Serve in Dimpled mug, Snifter

Deep chocolate brown with scarlet hues when held up to the light. Smells of sawdust, chocolate malt Whoppers, Hershey syrup and hay. Flavor is rich and sweet, with a touch of astringency as it slips from the center of the tongue. Some aspects remind me of a key lime cheesecake I had with chocolate icing dripped over it. The lime aspects account for the slight acidic lick on the sides of the tongue. Palate is a little thin but not distracting. Syrupy cola finish.

Tap at the American Club. Dark ruby color with offwhite head. Smells of chocolate, light roast, and caramel malt. Mildly hoppy.

Dark Brown Coloring with Sandy Head. Smokey Aroma. Rich Malt, Nutty Notes..Dry Ending. Very Nice Brew.

Dark dark amber color. Starts light, picks up a perfumey caramel Great balance and a great bock.

Poured from growler, courtesy of cquiroga at O’Briens. My notes have this titled as "Calumet alleged Bock", because as DarkElf mentions just below, we were somewhat baffeled by the seeming inconsistency of the experience of this beer to our past Bock reference points. However, it poured dark brown and clear with brick red highlights and a tannish head. Aroma is of dark smokey malts - nice and roasty - with notes of chocolate and coffee. Mild flavors, roasty, bitter maltiness, woody, tannic and astringent in the finish. Medium body and creamy carbonation. For a bock I would have expected much more aroma, flavor and palate.

(Growler: Shared by cquiroga at O’Brien’s) There was a great deal of discussion at the Ratebeer table whether this was even the right beer. Tastes like no bock I’ve ever sampled. Tastes like a dark brown lager to me, not a bock. Moderately roasty, dry, somewhat bitter in the finish. Fairly simple, and lacks the sweetness or the moderate alcohol I associate with more traditional bocks. The nose is lightly roasty, dry, earthy and lagerish. Dark brown color is slightly translucent. Light tan head is smallish, which might be expected from a two week old growler, and the head fades to a small island surrounded by a circular coral reef. It’s a decent beer, certainly quite drinkable and enjoyable, but nothing here is terribly interesting or extraordinary. But this is the main reason why I don’t trade growlers. I just don’t think beer travels well in growlers, and if what others say about this beer is true, this one seems to have lost a bit in transit.

Growler from Hezron; many thanks! Very dark brown color (just a pinch under black!) with no head. Woody aroma. The taste is more like an alt: smokey and nutty with a good burst of malt and a dry finish. Tasty fine!

4/21/05. Poured out of growler, obtained in trade with hezron on RateBeer 4/15/05. Damn. What a disappointment. I feel a little uncertain even about rating this beer, because my experience with it was so far off from what earlier ratings had indicated, I almost thought it was the wrong beer. Or it had just gone bad. But while I’m sure the beer was worse for the wear of taking a cross-country journey in a growler, it did not have any strong signs of spoilage. And so I rate. The carbonation was actually very nice, but it seemed like the flavors were "soaked" a little. Dark brown, mostly transparent with a red-brown tinge. Decent, light tan and mostly creamy head that hangs around awhile. Light smokey and nutty aroma, gentle roast with lagery hop and very faint caramel malt. A touch of wet hair in the aroma-- the main indicator that this probably *was* past its prime. Not very bock-like. Dry finish with soft fluffy mouthfeel, very faint chocolate with a long, drying trail and gentle bitterness. Not much going on of interest-- not much bock-y sweetness. Really disappointing in its ordinariness. The mouthfeel is really good-- the best thing about this beer, but it can’t save the disappointing flavor or aroma. Eminently drinkable, but I don’t feel like I should bother. The beer seems off. Again, not badly spoiled, but like it lost its character at the baggage claim. Now I’m certain of what I had suspected in the first place before I arranged a trade with hezron-- I *must* try this on draft at the brewery. This review will have to do for now. Let it just warn you that taking growlers away and shipping them out to far-away regions, you could have similar results to what I’ve found. Thanks for trying, hezron. We’ll split one together at the brewery when I make it out there.