Penn Penndemonium

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

Serve in Lager glass, Shaker, Stein

50cl bottle from Total Wine (Tampa). Pours a clear amber with a one finger, frothy white head that laces the glass. Aroma is bread, yeast, straw, grass. Flavor is also a bit bready with notes of hops, malt and some faint sweetness (like caramel or honey). Light to medium mouthfeel with a quick finish.

Amberish gold with a medium creamy head. Aroma is slightly sulfuric but mostly a heavy breadiness with a touch of alcohol. There’s perhaps some toffee in that. Flavor is strongly bready toffee malts, almost cloying, with a thickish, vaguely tannic/grainy wring to the cheeks. Tangy. Creamy palate, clean fermentation (having said that, there might be just a hint of DMS) and hidden alcohol distinguish this from malt liquor.

Pours clear gold with a quick fizzling head akin to ginger ale. Zero head, retention, or lacework. Aromatics filled with sweet malt, honey, bread dough, and a hint of butter. The mouthfeel is thinnish with some slick residuals. Slightly tacky. Honey-drizzled malt lead off the pallet, with some underlying orangy notes following through. Bitterness is balancing, and hopping in general is minimal, except for the tangerine-like citrus. Alcohol is warming, but quite subdued and this is one quite drinkable. Finishes with some lingering honey residuals and clean malt. Pretty tasty and easily pegged as a big Maibock. What happened to the carbonation and head? Perhaps its way past prime..No dating on the bottle, so no way too tell.

Bottle; poured a dull, dark gold. Big white head. Some visible carbonation streams. Aroma of biscuit, bread, yeast and grass/earth/flowers. Palate was ok. Flavor was straightforward; alcohol, yeast, biscuit. Not much hop presence. Lacked in great flavor, but it was ok.

22oz bomber. Glowing orange-tan color. Sweet, complex, malty beer. Alcohol is apparent but slightly veiled through the smooth yeasty richness. I really like this beer, but was more impressed the first time I had it, when I assumed the alcohol content was a tad higher. A really nice Heller Bock, definitely worth a try.

Bottle. Pour is an orangish gold with lots of bubbles rising to the surface and a little bit of haze to it. Head is fairly minimal. Aromas are reminiscent of Oktoberfest... heavy malt, sweet, honey and bread. Flavor is more of the same, but a bit of a fruity presence comes in and the alcohol is fairly detectable. Nice.

Poured from a brown glass bomber into a pint glass. Dull golden nectar with the faintest hint of cloudiness, and a white frothy head. Leaves a nice lacing on the glass. Malt aromas dominate this one. There is a subdued creaminess that balances the malt. Again, the malts dominate the palate. They do not hide or cover up the the 10% ABV, as you get all of it at the end. This beer just didn’t do it for me. There didn’t seem to be a good balance between the malts and alcohol; something was missing to bridge the two. Medium bodied and creamy with a crisp finish. Heavier than I expected. Definitely not session beer; some beers hide their alcohol, and this is not one of them. Not my favorite, but I’m glad I tried it.

22 oz bottle, via lukin013. Pours a slightly hazy gold body under a one finger fizzy white head that had decent retention. Moderate visible carbonation. The nose is bready cereal grains with a slight sweetness akin to honey. A little bit of cooked veggies sneaking in too. The flavor is a little heavier on the cooked veggies, covering up much of the malt and not leaving a very clean finish. Mouthfeel is light to medium bodied with a fairly watery texture and very prickly fizzy carbonation. Overall, not sure what they were going here for, but nothing about this is very good.