Dixie White Moose

Pours gold with a nice white head. Smells of spice, dough, some wheat. Tastes of caramel, chocolate, lots of doughiness on the finish. I really hope this brewery isn’t gone for good. This is an interesting beer.

Little bottle at Winking Lizard Tavern, Cleveland, OH. I had this years ago, but remember it quite well. It pours almost transparent and is exactly what you expect. It tastes like white chocolate; sweet, but 7oz doesn’t get cloying. But beer? More malt beverage than beer. A nice dessert, and nothing more.

Interesting aroma of chocolate, brown sugar. Appearance is pale golden, and murky. Vitrually no head at all. I have to wonder if it’s flat due to its age (this was purcahsed today, and the beer has been retired a while.) The taste is sweet, like chocolate pudding. Virtually no hops, or anything else. Palate is unremarkable. An ok beer, but I’m not sorry it’s retired. (And I’m pissed I paid $3.99 for it.)

(7oz bottle, courtesy of Sledge Jr) Pours a clear golden body with small white head. Looked like a lager, but this was far from the aroma and taste. Halloween reminiscent nose of tootsie roll, candy corn, and caramel. Flavor of white chocolate, malt, and loads of corn syrup once it warms up.... Very interesting, as my friend Tad would say.

16-Oct-06 (7 oz bottle: Purchased in Washington, DC sometime in 2000 or 2001) I bought this bottle of beer before I moved to San Diego in the summer of 2001, so this is some pretty damn old stuff. I didn’t intentionally try to age this beer six years, I just could never find a beer to pair with it for a rating session. Well, enough’s enough. The beer pours dark golden in color, fairly hazy in appearance, and capped by a very thin whitish film that dissipates very quickly. But without even putting my nose near the glass, the aroma of extraordinarily sweet almond extract jumps out of the glass. The first sip confirms this. Sweet Jesus, this could easily substitute in a pinch for your cake recipe! It’s taken me several sips, but now I’ve finally figured out exactly what this beer tastes like: the well-known and tasty aperitif by Sonoma Valley Portworks called Duet, a cream sherry with natural hazelnut. So rather than tasting like white chocolate, I guess the six years has oxidized this beer to the point of making it taste like sherry. Really, at no point does this make me think I’m drinking beer -- it’s not the least bit malty, hoppy or bitter, it’s minimally carbonated, and the full-on sweet hazelnut never relinquishes its hold as the dominant flavor. Frankly, I find it pretty enjoyable, but I love dessert wines like sherry. Body is somewhat heavy at first, almost syrupy, but thins considerably in the finish. I never drank this beer when it was freshly bottled, but with it tasting like hazelnut cream sherry, I’ll go out on a limb here and say this has improved greatly over the six years.