Left Hand Chainsaw Ale (Double Sawtooth)

Brewed by Left Hand Brewing Co.
Style: American Strong Ale
Longmont, Colorado USA

Serve in Snifter, Tulip

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After much twisting, tugging, pulling, and prying on the wire basket and cork the bottle emitted a nice “POP”, just the sound I like to hear after a long hard day at the salt mine. Upon the pour from the 750ml brown bottle, the color a bemused brown with a massive semi-creamy light tan head that slowly erodes leaving a thick and sticky sheet of lace to coat the glass. Nose has a nice bit of hop aroma, also some over ripe fruit, I’d say pineapple, all back by a bit of earthiness, start is moderately sweet, the grain profile delightful and the top moderate in feel. Finish is light to medium in carbonation; the hops give a nice spicy kick and the end, quite dry and long lasting aftertaste, a nice drinking beer, but watch the 9 percent ABV.

Reddish brown beer with a thin tan head as a result of aggressive pouring. The head did not last long and what I saw of it contained little mass. Extremely malty aroma with hints of plum and cherry. There’s also some vanilla and butter notes in there. Extremely sweet beer with just a slightly bitter finish. Oily mouthfeel is rather unpleasant and the soft carbonation does this beer no favors. Moderate alcohol notes as well. This beer may be fairly big but it doesn’t really add much to the already mediocre Sawtooth ale.

UPDATED: APR 13, 2010 Deep burgundy with a light tan head. Poured vigorously, it stood some time. Sweet-smelling nose. Soft but weighty mouthfeel was ballsy. Malts were toasty with a touch of brown sugar-like sweetness. Bitterness was healthy and grassy ... balanced things out well. Hops were nice and zingy; touch of citrus (orange and grapefruit). I like Sawtooth so it didn’t surprise me that I liked this one.

Pours dark amber with a thin head. Aroma is caramel, mint, creme. Taste is minty, frothy, lots of spicy hops. Alcohol is relatively well hidden. Mouthfeel is light, slightly viscous. Nice biscuity malts, slight diacetyl. Worthy stuff.

Draught at 4th Annual Wildland Firefighters Benefit & Festival at the Pumphouse in Longmont CO. Pours hazy ruby-amber with a patchy tan head. Aroma is fruity citrus hop and malt (grain, meal) with yeast (sweat) notes. Purfumey hop, resinous, citrus and floral, medium bitter flavor, light caramel malt notes, medium acidity and sweetness. Medium bodied and fizzy, clean palate.

Dark copper color, with immense froth. Dull, underwhelming aroma. However, fairly nice flavor balance, with rich malt and hop flavors abound. Smooth, creamy body, with well hidden alcohol.

From a bottle into a snifter. Beer pours a hazy, medium-brown color with an average-sized, frothy, off-white, mostly and quickly diminishing head. The aroma is sweetly malty with light notes of cookie, caramel and toasted grain; Moderately hoppy with a sharp note of resin/pine; Lightly yeasty with a note of bread dough; Light miscellaneous notes of vanilla and toffee and/or sweet corn. Not fiercely engaging, but still mostly fetching. The flavor is moderately sweet, heavily bitter with an extra-long, heavy, lingering and slightly unpleasant sharp, bitter finish and a little bit of corn in the retros.The body is medium-to-full, the texture is almost creamy, the carbonation is soft and there’s a moderately alcoholic warmth in the finish.

Head is initially small, frothy, light brown, mostly diminishing. Body is hazy dark amber, bottle conditioned. Aroma is lightly to moderately malty (caramel, cookie), lightly to moderately hoppy (resin, grapefruit), lightly yeasty (dough), with light notes of toffee and alcohol. Moderately to heavily sweet, lightly to moderately acidic, lightly bitter. Finish is lightly to moderately sweet, moderately acidic, moderately to heavily bitter. Full body, creamy/velvety texture, lively carbonation, lightly alcoholic. Surprisingly well-hidden alky and an exceptionally creamy rich body provoked a 5 for the mouthfeel pretty quickly. Not really exciting to me in most other aspects, pretty mild in the nose and more citric than I like, but a decent beer in spirit.