Dogfish Head Raison D Extra

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

Bottled 08/30/05, with thanks to boboski! Pours a clear iced tea (although slightly darker than the Etre), with a fizzy tan head that is gone immediately, no ring, no nothing. Aroma is more port like, with dark overripe and dried fruits, brown sugar, molasses, alcohol and maybe nutmeg, lots going on. Flavor is also more mature and complex than the Etre, but manages to hold it well; a touch more sweet, but also tempered and not syrupy or sticky. The high alcohol is actually not detectable in the palate like it is a bit on the nose. To be honest, I did not hold out much hope for this, and imagined it as an over the top mess, but its a tasty sipper. Guessing that putting some age on this thing helped it along as well. Every bit as good as the Etre, but each accentuates different qualities, and are definitely done to different degrees. What the Etre does with subtlety, the Extra does with mature complexity.

Pours a cloudy brown with a tint of red with a tan head. Aroma is amazing, lots of rasins, figs, brown sugars, malt, spices. Flavor is fruit, rasins, brown sugars, spices, figs, nuts. The flavors melt in your mouth and the significant alcohol warms things up, but not too much. The 18% alcohol is hidden in this pretty well as I didn’t find it as hot as other beers with this much alcohol. I’m going to have to buy up some more while I can since DFH is no longer brewing this.

I will admit that I am not a fan of high alcohol beers nor am I a particular fan of raisins...but my boyfriend got a bottle of this and wanted me to split it with him, so I decided to try it...pours a light brown, cloudy, no head and a rather syrupy texture. Aroma is awful--much too overpowering and so repulsive to me that I actually had to pinch my nose while drinking it. Aroma is strong of alcohol, brown sugar, raisin. Flavor is a little better than the aroma- brown sugar, alcohol, sweetness. Super rich and super sweet. Too one-dimensional for such a high alcohol beer, it is not balanced enough, creating a huge alcohol mess. I just don’t think the body of Raison D’Etre is strong enough to handle the 18.5%. I could only take about 10 or so sips. Won’t be having this again...

Bottle. Aroma simple and intense: alcohol, raisins, candi sugar. Really nice, powerful flavor with the huge alcohol well integrated with all those raisins and sugar. It honestly didn’t seem as out of balance to me as a mere 20 IBU would suggest. Very nice beer, but seems like a bit more could have been done with all that alcohol, and the palate does weigh on you. In the future I would never want this in anything greater than a 3-oz. serving.

I absolutely love the uber-gravity beers DFH puts out. This one was very much like their others, with a huge heavy sticky body and loads of fruity sweetness. The tastes in this one were very complex, all along the rotten dark fruit vein. Gobs of plums, cherries, figs, pomegranate, raisins, and others. Huge thick body that stays amazingly thick as it warms. Just excellent.

This is a review of an ’05 that has been cellared properly. Zero head with some bubbles that quickly vanished. Aroma was heavy malt, toasted, molasses, no hops and moderate yeast. Heavy duty raisin, plum, date, and cherry. Still has that DFH sweetness that’s so evident in many of their other beers. Actually has a slight Burton Baton quality to it.

12 oz. bottle; no indications of date or ABV. Strong aroma of alcohol with an underlying raisin aspect. Hazy ruby color with no persisting head. Medium bodied with creamy carbonation, but the alcohol overrides everything in the beginning. It moderates into dark raisiny flavor. The finish goes sort of woody, with dark raisin. Can’t say there’s much hop here, but there’s a little woodish bitter. As tme passes, the bitterness builds in the mouth, and a chocolate touch is discernible. An interesting ale, but not one I’m likely to revisit.

Pours a cloudy dark brown with quickly fadding light brown head. Smells of raisons and alcohol. There is an apparent alcohlic taste upfront, but has a delicious finish of sweet raisins. Semi- sweet from start to finish. The alcohol is almost overwhelming but the taste of the raisins takes over in the end. I purchased a bottle of this off the internet for around 9 bucks just to say I’ve tried a beer thats 20% ABV. Not bad for how much alcohol is present.