Hair of the Dog Fred

courtesy of ibrew2or3 Batch 69 Pours orange with white head. Aroma is rye and fruity. Taste, grainy (rye). very sweet and fruity (apple). The 10% abv is very present, but everything falls into place and remains highly enjoyable and incredibly well balanced. re-rate May ’09. got a lot more of the barrel, light sourness of the wood and caramel. Taste, barrel oak, some whiskey finish with lingering sourness? light caramel/malts with tobacco leaf palate.

12 oz bottle batch 71 poured a copper gold in color with absolutely no head though matter how vigorous the pour. aroma has sticky sweet caramel malt, apple, light spices, and some rye snap. mouth feel is medium with faint at best carbonation. flavor is hefty on the sweet caramel malts providing a thick coating and the rye keeps the malt from becoming cloying. dark fruit begins to shine and resins begin to come through from the hops. interestingly this seems to soften up and the subtle flavors start to evolve.

On tap at Stone. Not much aroma. No head at all. Light lace at most. Interesting dynamic in the mouth. It was sweet and full in the mouth, but with a LIGHT flavor to it. At the same time it was also fruity and thick. I’m not sure how I could get all those sensations at once. I could definitely taste the alcohol. Fruity, with a bitter bite at the end. Tastes of wine, apple, and aspirin. Wasn’t a 99 percentile to me unfortunately. Rerate from 12 oz bottle batch 73. Total gusher. Lost a few oz. after I poured it. Still 3 inches of SOLID, walk-on-it head a couple of minutes later. As I eat the head with a spoon it’s super sweet and malty. Creamy sweet to alcohol hot to bitter hops. Then gooey thick. Very similar to what I wrote from the tap, except for the gargantuan head, crying himself to sleep on his ’uuuuge pilla’.

Batch 65, I had small crisis with cork coming off with just a press of the thumb, but luckily the beer was in shape. Beautiful deep amber, small beige head. Resin hoppy nose, syrupy caramel malts and rowanberry. Strongly berryish flavor, intensive resiny hops, sweet syrupy maltiness, herbs. Warming cranberry tannic finish. Even slight lambic kind of excitement in the very end. What a barley wine, resiny hops with fresh acidic berries.

Batch #62. Wow, what a live beer. Tons of thick, foamy head that took quite a while to settle. Nice burnt orange color. Flavor is complex of malt, fruit and a hoppy and alcohol filled end. Very good.

12 bottle. batch # 71. Pour golden orange with no head what so ever. Pours a lot like DFH 120 IPA. Aroma is sweet malt, citrus, caramel and a little hops. Flavor is dominated by sweet malt and citrus. Lots of caramel and sugar and touch of alcohol shines through. This one leans toward the british style for sure. Mouthfeel is flat and syrupy which brings out some complex flavors. Good stuff.

this is wow. huge head. first beer i’ve opened this year to have the head come rushing out of the bottle. huge flavor. lots of hop in the nose and flavor. nice balance of sweet maltiness. Great finish, the bitterness and sweet play a dance on the back of the tongue. I get rye, cereals, fruitiness... the nose and palate are linked closely. Not a huge fan of hoppy beers, but this is a pillar in the community. the craftsmanship... this is art.

Bottle and on draft. This is one big beer. Sweet malty, woody, with caramel and then this freaking hop bomb jumps out at you and destroys you. Fragrent hoppiness, citrus, hop resin, bitter floral notes, rye, and dried fruit. One hell of a hoppy bw. This beer is bigger than me.