Dogfish Head World Wide Stout 2001/2003-Present (18%)

GNBO. Bottle 2007 (Sampled April ’08). Picked this up over Christmas. Pours black with a nice brown head. Nose is alcohol, roasted barley, and chocolate. Flavors are rich and roasted, very malty, VERY HOT, some dried dark fruits. I’m glad I picked up two because this needs to be aged to mellow. Wonderful flavors, very impressive. Will adjust my ratings with the aged version down the road.

2008 bottle shared by JoeTheYounger. Pours thick and black with a thin brown film. Aroma is chocolate, coffee, roast, dates and prunes. Flavor is much the same, chocolatey caramel, dark fruits, some vanilla, a bit of port wine and a good deal of heat. Full bodied and silky on the palate with low carbonation. Better than I expected from a young bottle of this stuff.

Pours jet-black into the glass with a brown head. Aroma is full of roasted grains and chocolate with a small booziness coming through. Flavor is a very smooth chocolate and coffee with a nice bitterness coming from the roast. As it warms a fair amount of alcohol is noticeable. I cannot think of a beer that I would rather have on a cold winter night!

bottle. a sipper. notes of chocolate, licorice, alcohol. sticky mouthfeel. seems to have a fair amount of alcohol . nice

12 oz bottle, 2008 vintage. Love DFH, and thought this would be a great staple to add to the beers I’ve had. Pours a nearly complete opaque black color (just catches the light around the corner) with a small tan head that dies quickly. Smells of roasted chocolate, some fruit (banana perhaps?), and a candy sugar like smell. Tastes of chocolate, some coffee, the fruit from the smell, the malt or sugar, and a nice alcohol bite. Goes down fairly smooth, but the alcohol is strong, so not for the faint of heart. An interesting beer, though it might do well with some aging as it is a little strong, but the flavors are interesting, as I wasn’t expecting the sweetness.

Bottle, pours black. Prune, raisin and sweet malt aroma. Very nice taste, that has a vinous, but malty plum wine and prune taste. Alcohol makes it self noticed in your stomach. This is one of my favorite stouts and I like how it is almost like wine. Very rememberful (if that is a word).

Pours murky dark brown with a 2 finger fizzy caramel brown head that fades quickly to a skim and holds, it even leaves a few specs of lacing, nice. Aroma is roast, toffee, banana, lots of milk and dark chocolates, suprising amounts of caramel, hints of espresso, sweet grain, prunes, burnt sugar and just a touch of char. A little ethanol, more chocolate and anise come out as it warms but stays very well hidden for the abv level. Flavor is huge on roast, chocolate and coffee up front followed by yeasty rye bread, the richest dark caramel, herbal notes, leather, toasted pine, ethanol, banana nut bread-heavy on the walnuts, port, black pepper, bourbon, vanilla bean and just a touch of sweet berries as it warms. Finish is caramel, whiskey, dark chocolate, coffee and roast with a little bitter char. Probably a little too much alcohol coming in as it gets really warm. Palate is medium thickness with a suprisingly high effervescence, slightly slick feel and dry to astringent finish. Overall this is a great brew with plenty of complexity if you search for it and a suprisingly light palate. I must admit that in warmer temperatures I probably wouldn’t enjoy it as much.

I paid 2100 yen for this ($20 to 25 US) so it could never live up to expectations. Good for what it is, but the alcohol tends to drown out the complexities. It might go down well on an extremely cold winter, but in spring it was merely good. Struggled to finish.