JosephsBrau Winterfest

Brewed by Gordon Biersch Brewing Company
Style: Doppelbock
Palo Alto, California USA

Sweet vanilla almost oaky aroma. Hint of spicy alcohol. Sweet dark and thick, a touch metallic. Pretty tasty.

Bottle: Pours a dark maroon with a billowing white head that lasts. Small chocolate and caramel notes in the aroma with some grassy scents. Taste is Chocolate, caramel, toffee, malts, lightly hoppy, prunes, and rather sugary. Rather watery and abrupt palate is not exciting at all. Decent Doppelbock but when there are gems like Celebrator and Salvator that I can get regularly this is an afterthought. Try it once with the 94 cent singles at Trader Joe’s that would be your best bet.

from the bottle. poured a reddish brown with a light tan head and no lacing. aroma roasted malts, caramel, sugar, molasses, a little chocolate. flavor, roasted malts, chocolate, plums, brown sugar, some hops. mouth feel was a little thin. but not to bad of a beer.

I don’t know if I got a bad batch or what, but this tastes like someone didn’t finish the mash when they were making it-yuck. If you’re going to call something a winter brew, at least put some spices in it. Pass on this.. ick.

Pours dark, clear brown with very thin white head. Nose is burnt sugar. The flavor is molasses (strongly), maple syrup, artificial caramel. Very, very sweet (lactose? maltose? Not sure). Definite roasted notes. Thin, slightly oily mouthfeel. I like the mildly bitter aftertaste. Alcohol completely hidden which is impressive. Rather forgettable but would be good for your friends you are trying to ease into drinking real beer.

12 oz. brown longneck bottle. No freshness date seen, but it’s the 2005 batch. Poured out a dark amber color, with a decent tan colored head. the head stayed around to the bottom of the glass. Aromas are of chocolate malts, earthy hops, some diacetyl as well. Slight butterscotch aromas & flavors. Not a good thing for a Dopplebock. Some smoke in the finish, medium mouthfeel. Hops are well hidden, almost non-existent. Decent winter warmer though.

Dark reddish brown, short tan head. Although this has some toasty malts, I mostly get a sweet plummy taste out of this, grapes and a lingering sweet stickyness - hardly balanced, I can’t drink more than one of these in a session - there is a little bit of a roast/hop at the end, slight smoke and coffee at the back of the tongue. Grab some of this for your holiday party for sure.

bottle-pours deep brown amber with a mall soapy off-white head. Big chocolate note comes to me at first with some notes of smoke (hickory) and some nice carmel undertones. some woodsy notes in the flavors with touches of smoke, chocolate, and slightly ashy. body is full, round and fairly nice! pretty good, but i liked their bock a little better.