Penn Penndemonium

Brewed by Pennsylvania Brewing Company
Style: Heller Bock
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA

Serve in Lager glass, Shaker, Stein

Bomber. Pours a standard golden color with not much head. Aroma is typical lager - bready, beery, crisp. Not bad. Taste is smooth with alcohol hidden well. Good, not great.

22oz. Bottle: Faint aroma. Smells of caramel, malts, and corn. Poured deep gold in color, like apple juice, with a medium-sized, rocky, off-white head that diminished. Clear. Sparkling. Flavor is light to medium sweet. Tastes of corn, candy sugar, caramel malts, and vanilla extract. Flavor grew on me as I drank it. Hides the 8% very well. Almost like a sweetened malt liquor. Medium body. Sticky, thick texture. Average carbonation. Short, sweet, finish. Alcohol is a bit warming. Overall, it grew on me.

UPDATED: JUN 5, 2008 Is 8% ABV even that high? I’m just used to stronger beers I guess. Anywho, there’s nothing really great here. Seems like a standard lager with some extra flavors here and there, but nothing that great. Not terrible, but I expected more.

Bomber courtesy of lukin013. Pours copper with a white head. Smells of citrus, earthy and some pine hints. Tastes of roses, citrus, sweet malt, some biscuits, some nice chewy qualities. Mouthfeel is sweet and peppery. Finish is of caramel. Very nice!

22oz bottle. Clear burnt copper colored body with a nice looking, finely-bubbled white head. Nose of sweet caramel corn and a bit of DMS or creamed corn aroma, but not too offensive or anything. Dough and candy corn round out the nose. Medium bodied, lightly slick up front and then more thick (but not really thick) over the middle. Sweet starchy corn and grain flavor, light butter and light doughy fruit even. Overall a good beer, not exceptional, a little too sweet at times but it does has a decent doughy/sour yeast character that helps.

Rather than dump on this beer for not being a doppelbock like Celebrator, I will take it for what it undoubtedly is: a Hellerbock. The malt flavor is unmistakeably Penn--it is rather like an exaggerated version of their Helles. But, you know, I get very disappointed when a brewery’s Bock is simply that. And amped-up lagers like this can really be boring, because they get "hot" (as here) or too rich and syrupy (this one doesn’t suffer from syrupiness), but don’t really benefit from the extra infusion of ingredients and alcohol. I liked it insofar as I like Penn’s malt profile, but would be happier drinking their Pilsner, which is cheaper and less likely to impair me.

Wow, this was a doppelbock? For f-ks sake had a bit of this and was convinced it was just a bad, weak Saison. Not bad or undrinkable, but for a doppelbock? untenable.

Crystal clear and golden in the glass with a fully-diminishing alka-seltzer head. Aromas are... mushroom?... in addition to lots of strong grains. Sweet malts, some butterscotch and a drying finish. More an experiment to pack alcohol into this beer than a regard for flavor and style, I’m afraid.