Lagunitas The Hairy Eyeball Ale

Brewed by Lagunitas Brewing Company
Style: American Strong Ale
Petaluma, California USA

Serve in Snifter, Tulip

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Chestnut colour, mahogany. Yellowish-amber head, thick. Nose of orange-marmalade cake. Beautifully hoppy-bitter, restrained and yet powerful. There’s a mighty malt punch underneath, a rich, velvety cake. Something pine-y there as well, resinous. Blends in well. Rich, full mouthfeel. Alcohol there, but restrained. The resinous hops are still there in the aftertaste. AH. This is American ale at its best.

Bottle from Case and Keg. Pours a reddish/brown color and a very small head. Aroma has caramel, maple, honey, oak and some raisin bread. Flavor is pretty sweet and has caramel malts, maple syrup, brown sugar and a slight hop finish. Very good, just a tad too sweet.

A Sim rate (on tap at Flying Saucer, Houston): Sweet plums, raisins, and sweet malty aroma that’s very alcoholic. Sweet, but very alcoholic flavour that’s almost too over-the-top. Plum, raisin. It’s bitter fruitcake. It’s not really my sort of thing. I don’t do fruitcake.

Densely complex brown sugar, soy, and chocolate aroma hovers above the dark murky brown body. Moderately hoppy body has some residual sweetness and covers the alcohol very well. Body is somewhat of a let down compared to the aroma. No really pronounced flavors are present. It's smooth but somewhat bland, nonetheless a pretty decent brew.

Brownish with a mocha head, significant head and lace, overflowing bottle a bit like Belgians do once the bottle was opened. Horrible aroma, fishy and like someone sweaty had drunk from this glass just prior. Not like to think about that. Pefectly served at Volo at just under room temperature and enjoyed on their deck. Smooth, creamy, refreshing, full mouthfeel. Hops came at you more and more, but carbonation was not overbearing rather drying. Spicy hop aftertaste.An easy name to find on the search engine.

Clear dark reddish brown with a beige head. Aroma is quite sweet malty, caramel, dried fruit and moderate hoppy. Flavor is quite sweet and rather bitter. Dry and rather bitter finish with warming alcohol. 191111

Tap at Sunswick. Pours a dark, cloudy brown with a substantial beige head. Aroma is heavy with raisin, fig, and caramel, with some light funkiness. Augurs a rather sweet experience. Flavor is super-sweet. A mix of turbinado and brown sugar, with more raisin. Hop presence asserts itself in the finish. Big body, thick and syrupy, good carbonation. The intensity of the sweetness sets this beer apart from the pack - for better or worse. I liked it.

UPDATED: JUN 23, 2012 22oz bottle. MEdium dark brown with a rusty brown toasty head. Nice light body for a heavy beer such as this... lots of graham cracker, cinnamon, brown sugar, light lactic yeast flavor. Decent nose of wood, alcohol and whiskey, which is odd because it doesn’t taste like it at all.

UPDATED: OCT 28, 2007 The Lure:
Multiple fieldberries and oranges stick to the portly caramel maltiness. A sheet of foam protects the clear burgundy.

The Festivities:
Green, resinous hop bitterness amicably grounds the black cherries and oranges. Caramel, roast and alcohol give depth to the flavor spectrum and a very good, although unmemorable, barleywine-like creature is born.

Transcendence:
Wintry gales can warm your thoughts up.

A: The pour is a clear dark amber color with a mild, slightly off-white head. S: The nose is sort of weak with and interesting mix of sweet caramel, toffee, and coffee (could have been some roasted malt). I tried letting the beer warm up, but still a bit muted. T: The flavor is a bit more intense than the nose, but similarly lackluster. Not bad, but certainly not fantastic. The malty sweetness is the primary flavor with some hints of toast and roast and a light bitterness. M: A full-medium body with a low to moderate level of carbonation. D: For the ABV, it’s fairly easy to drink, but it ’s not necessarily a beer I would look to try again. One of the few Lagunitas beers I haven’t been too crazy about.