Dogfish Head Chateau Jiahu

Brewed by Dogfish Head Brewery
Style: Traditional Ale
Milton, Delaware USA

Serve in Dimpled mug, English pint, Stein, Yard

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Pours a murky dull gold with a fizzy short lived head. Aroma is chardonnay-like, grape skin with a slight tartness, some apple and pear notes as well. Sticky sweet flavor with more grapes, lightly astringent and tanniny with more fruity apples and pear, honey, flowers and herbs. Finishes slightly sweet with a very sticky long lasting aftertaste. I could feel this concoction on the back of my tongue and still taste most of it long after each sip. Nice crazy beer. After a string of less than stellar DFH beer releases, this was a nice surprise.

GABF 06. hazy light yellow, straw color. Aroma is honey, spices, fruit, and alcohol. Taste is honey, fruity with light grape and apple notes, spices, and alcohol. very strange.

Aroma of carbonated chardonnay and grape juice. Poured cloudy, like a weiss beer. Tasted like apples in carbonated white wine with a hint of grape in the finish. Interesting.

On tap at Dogfish Head, Rehoboth Beach location. Hazy frosty yellow gold, white head. Aroma is musty cheese, honey, and malt. Flavor is honey, sour dough, apples, pears, and wheat. I found this one to be pretty tastey.

UPDATED: AUG 4, 2007 Re-Rate...Pours very hazy golden orange with a small white bubbly head. Aromas of slightly sweet and tart berries with vinous like acidity, and just a slight hint of underlying honey. Lightly sweet-tart berry and acidic white grape juice upfront, a light hint of alcohol mid-palate, and spicy note over some light honey presence towards the finish. Palate is medium, effervescent, dry, acidic, and a bit tart. Original rating ( 6 4 8 3 17 = 3.8)

UPDATED: JAN 11, 2007 2006 750mL bottle shared with EDA and MKobes on 6/23/06.
Medium-high clarity, with nothing on the bottom. Not seeing this haziness that everyone talked about. Deep, ripe peach and apricot colored body shows medium-sized bubbles rising to create a flimsy beige/white head that scurries for the edges, leaving no lacing.
Cidery nose shows fermented honey and then a light tart/juiciness, I assume to be the hawthorn berries. Not too much grapiness in the nose, though, and some residual honey to sweeten things. Hints of vanilla, peaches, apricots and other fruity esters. Medium strength of aroma, does not show the alcohol (some minor sharpness upon warming).
Begins rather mead-like, with plenty of apple notes, dry vanilla, bits of earthiness and tart berry-like astringency. Some residual honey arrives mid-palate to add balance (lord, I never thought I’d see the day that sweetness actually helped balance a DFH beer) and soften things. I could attempt to guess the different notes present, but I won’t. Suffice to say there are a number of things going on here, none particularly melded together well with each other. Bit of fuzzy, rice-like bubble gumminess on the end as well. Texture is sticky, bordering syrupy at times, save for the light acidity drying things out. Carbonation is terribly loose and unfocused, tending watery towards the end. I don’t know, it dosent taste like their last four or five 750mL special releases, so I guess that’s nice, not that that really says anything about the actual beer. Don’t really know enough about what this should taste like or what was intended by the brewer to give an accurate assessment. The cidery sourness could be an unintended infection for all I know.

750 ml champagne bottle. Bottled on 08/28/06. Pours out a hazy yellow color, with a fizzy fast fading head. Aromas are of pineapple, strange tropical fruits also. Medium mouthfeel, fizzy. Flavors are hard to describe. Grapes, honey, citrus. Finished too sweet for my liking.

Bottle Thanks ClarkVV. Hazy yellow in color with a little white head. Fruity sweet aroma. Pineapple and honey notes. Fruity stale citrusy flavor. Hoppy spicey notes. Sweet tasting. Finish is fruity and sweet. Medium bodied. Interesting beer.

UPDATED: OCT 4, 2006 Bottle... I like the bottle. The tattoo on the lower back of the Chinese woman does something for me. Now I know where that "lower back tattoo" trend originated... I thought it all started with Britney Spears. Anyway, that’s about the only thing I enjoy about this hazy golden ale. It has a small, creamy white head. The nose is musty and fruity with notes of apricot, clementine and a rumor of mint. The flavor is way too sweet and tastes more like a bad peach malternative than anything else. Medium-bodied and sticky with moderate carbonation. Finishes sweet and fruity. This is the one beer to drink when your local convenience store is completely sold out of legitimate malternatives. Thanks to growler for sharing the bottle. Actually, he had only a couple sips and gave the rest of his glass and the whole bottle to me. I should’ve dumped it, but I’m stubborn about beer. Really big bottle... got a decent buzz out of it!

750ml. bottle thanks to Dorwart at Dickinsonbeer’s. Hazy yellow/golden color with a small white head. Mild funky aroma with some honey, sweet spices and melon. Flavor was much more intense than the aroma. Vinous grape flavor with lots of honey and stone fruits. Interesting and enjoyable, but would not go out of my way to try it again.