DuClaw Serum

Brewed by DuClaw Brewing Company
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
Abingdon, Maryland USA

Serve in Shaker, Snifter

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From a 12 oz bottle at home. Pours a cloudy gold with a thick off white head. Floral hop aroma. Oily mouthfeel. Flavors of citrus and grass, with a strong malt backbone. Bitter finish.

The Irish Pol, tap: Pours brownish with whitish head. Aroma is caramel malt and some citrus hoppiness. Taste is citrus hops, but in tragically short quantity. Malt takes over. Some people compared this to a badly aged DIPA. I wouldn’t agree 100%, but I’ll be honest that the analogy is not far off. No excuse for this coming on tap... or maybe there is.

Tap. Pours dark amber. Citrus aroma and taste. Slight bitter at end. Finish of grapefruit. Nice balanced beer.

Bit of a nice pine hop aroma. Taste is of caramel malts blended with some bitter hops. Nice creamy body. bit of a pine aftertaste, pretty good.

12 oz bottle - pours amber-orange, clear, with medium white head. Orange, caramel, vanilla, malts on the nose. Taste is nice orange, with clover honey, bit of bittering hops, good malt base, long finish. Medium-full bodied with balance.

Bottle. Deep copper - mostly clear. Strong hoppy flavor. Quite good - strong flavor - pretty hoppy but alcohol/malt overwhelms it somewhat.

Bottle. Fruit and Resin aroma. Hazy golden body with thin dissipating head, nice lacing. Flavor begins sweet, with hints of raisins and fruit followed by floral, pine and hop notes. A sweet caramel finish with a bitter aftertaste.

Citrusy, piney, toasty, caramel, and nutty aromas. Peach-orange-copper with a rapidly fading, off-white head. Off-dry with fruity flavors redolent of oranges and peaches, and subtle vanilla, and balanced by a grasping bitterness. Medium body, lively carbonation, and with a lingering finish that includes notes of dry cherries, nuts, and orange peel, with a slight bit of booze as well.

Pours a slightly hazy dark copper body with a small off-white head that retained as a thin covering. The nose is not especially intense on the hops, this one is more of a balanced IIPA, which isn’t really my thing. There’s some citrusy and resiny hops, but also a lot of heavy caramel malt that actually shows through a bit more than the hops. The flavor is even more unbalanced towards the malt. Lots of caramel and burnt caramel sweetness that dominates the fairly tame resiny hops. This just isn’t what I want from an IIPA. Medium bodied with a chewy texture thanks to all the residual sweetness. Soft gentle carbonation. This one just wasn’t my thing.

Reviewed 3/8/13. 12 oz bottle into a nonic pint glass. A: Pours a cloudy dark copper color. The head is a one finger offwhite shade. Retention is pretty good given its alcohol content, and the lacing left behind is nice looking as well. S: Malty. There’s a lot of caramel, biscuit, and brown sugar in the malt backbone, weakly supported by some faint piny hops. Maybe there’s a touch of weed here as well. DuClaw’s typical yeast profile comes across less peppery and more...dare I say cardboard-like? Not sure about the age of this one, but I’m not impressed regardless. T: Hops are very faint here, except perhaps a faint bitter bite on the finish. This one is very much a malty DIPA, and a sweet one as well. At first, there are a surprising amount of plum-like qualities, which will eventually give way to a sweet caramel midtaste. It finishes with only faint piny hops, a sensation badly overpowered by heavy-handed brown sugar and orange sweetness. Good gawd, this is sweet, even cloying; and it can NOT get away with it the way Misery did. M: The body is really creamy, thick, and syrupy. As a barleywine, the texture works well - but this is a DIPA, so it’s just overbearingly difficult to sip (for the record, I don’t like most malty DIPAs). The hops cleanse the palate only enough to expose some boozy qualities, without really hiding much of the sweetness or giving the body extra drinkability. O: A poor DIPA; a passable barleywine/strong ale. I’ll be fair to it - the flavor profile screams "badly aged DIPA" to me. It’s not drainpour bad, but it’s going to take a long time to put this one down. It’s just WAY too sweet for my tastes.