DuClaw Colossus

Brewed by DuClaw Brewing Company
Style: American Strong Ale
Abingdon, Maryland USA

Serve in Snifter, Trappist glass

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pain brought on by sparky27... rich amber color with an expected short lived white head. looks thick. it smells good enough... cinnamon, maple syrup, brown sugar, dark dried fruit, grainy sweetness and a boozy burn. sweet cannot begin to describe this beast... i’m tearing up just rethinking about it... it tastes like super sweet wort with an astringent bitter finish... a kick in the teeth of alcohol too... i can’t do it.

Ok, this is an interesting one. I sampled it at Noogfest High 5 and found nothing to like other than the smell. The body was medium copper colored. The nose was initially straight booze. Then I began to get some blueberries and leather. The taste was another ballgame. I was disgusted by the sweetness from the first sip and as I had a few more, it didn’t get any better. It was like drinking straight molasses with some raisins mixed in. A failure from the start, this beer should not be released for public consumption. An absolute mess and a travesty for the price. My 1.7 is a generous rating. Horrid.

In short: An exaggeratedly sweet boozy beer. Train wreck.
How: Bottle 22oz. Post-EBF tasting session #2 with east-coast crew
The look: Partly cloudy dark golden body topped by a very small beige head
In long: Nose of booze and some kind factory mega-sweet dessert. Body is sticky, oily, slimy. Taste of booze syrup poured over the sweetest baklava that you can imagine. So sweet that it almost hides the booze. This is just too sweet. This is even sweeter than what I what I expected from a 22% brew. Maybe the sweetest drink I’ve ever had. The Colossus of DuClaw, one of the seven wonders of Maryland. Really. This beer sucks ass but try to name seven better man-made creations in Maryland. See, you can’t.

Sampled at Noogfest, provided generously by TheBeersomellier. So, I understand that this is a giant beer and that it is meant to be sipped slow in tiny proportions. I understand that this is very different as a barley beverage. I understand this is supposed to be sweet like port or mead. Even with all the caution going into this, it is way, way, way too sweet. It is pure, unadulterated, concentrated sugar. It is like drinking straight high fructose corn syrup. The amount of sugar in my mouth from one tiny sip makes my teeth grimace in pain as the cavities instantly explode along my gumline. I cannot tell you how sweet this is. I’ve never had any alcoholic beverage this sugary. No meads, no ports, no cordials, certainly not any beer. I can’t get over this. Even a 1oz. sample is too much. I had a good four or five sips trying to get into this one and gave up before the type II Diabetes kicked in. I can’t imagine attempting to finish even a small pour into a 6 oz. snifter. I cannot come up with any circumstance to enjoy this as a drink. Perhaps as a topping on a dessert this could be passable, but it may be even too sweet for that. That being said, this is certainly a product of an impressive feat in brewing.