Bomber sampled at the brewery. Pours a blackish red with a thin tan head. Malty caramel aroma with hints of fruity sweetness. Taste is malty sweet with nice fruit and hop notes that blend really well. Nicely hidden 9% abv, very good beer.

Draft at City Beverage. Dark amber pour with a thin head. Tastes like a thin scotch ale with that malt forward flavor, some honey, but a thinner version of the usual booze finish. I assumed it was highly watered down to become their most popular beer. Instead, I discovered they made a strong ass beer that goes down like water.

Bomber from November 2007. I’ve long enjoyed the basic Wee Heavy (which I need to enter from backlog), and thought the Wee Heavier was decent. This is an interesting experiment that really adds something new to previous offerings. Very full bodied copper/brown pour with a nice lasting head. Mouthfeel is smooth and creamy. Aroma has some definite yeast in it along with strong caramel malts and some cinnamon and clove in there. There’s some real spice, almost an astringent flavor that doesn’t always blend well with the malts. Sometimes the yeast seems to balance things out in a quirky way, but not always. Strangely puckering finish, which is weird for the style I suppose. But damn if I don’t dig it in the long run.

Noogfest ’08, thanks to suttree. The body was dark brown with a khaki head. The aroma was chocolate with some malt. The taste was malty and roasted with some iced tea. A decent brew.