Dogfish Head Raison D Extra

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.

12 oz bottle from a trade with thecheeseman. botled on 03/15/07. pours mostly reddish but dark enough to be called brown with a mid sized tan head. more carbonation then i expected. aromas are amazingly potent with dark fruit reigning over everything else but there is also some sweet malt not from the fruit and the occasional chocolate note. flavours are big and brashy. dark fruits, caramelly malt sweetness and alcohol. this is the biggest palate ruiner ive ever had. i mean this one rips your tounge to ribbons but this is somehow not unpleasent. if i had more id let them mellow for a few more years but right now im enjoying this one as much as i can. id probably drink this as a night cap if it was availible in smaller samples.

Pours amber with off white head. Big sweet malt and alcohol aroma. Very sweet and hot alcohol going down. You can taste the raisins.Too much alcohol taste for me. Medium to full body with minimal carbonation. Another over the top brew from DFH. Good to try once but not something I would have regularly.