Reunion - A Beer For Hope 2008

Formerly brewed at Bison Brewing Company
Style: Specialty Grain
Berkeley, California USA

Amber brown with large fluffy head. Beautiful looking beer. Aroma of detergent soap. The flavor was really malty and sweet with some hoppage....some odd grainy flavors. Unique and interesting, but not really excellent.

I’m not quite sure why this bottle was put back up for sale at local stores recently. It’s still quite drinkable, though. The beer is a shade between burgundy and garnet with a small white cap that fades quickly, at this point anyway. There’s a healthy dose of rye in the aroma. It’s spicy and sweet, like a light rye bread. There are also some interesting raisin-brandy notes floating around in there, possibly from the age of the bottle. The flavor is still quite clean, though the hops seem washed out. It’s like a light specialty malt barleywine. There are brown sugar, brandy and caraway seed mixing together. It’s a tad thin and this feel shows off the age a bit, but the beer has aged quite well given that it’s not really a prime candidate for such. At any rate, it’s better than expected and rather nice for an evening nightcap.

This bottled brew from a bottle shop poured a small sized head of foamy fine to large sized tan colored bubbles that were mostly lasting and left behind a typically carbonated light brown orange cola like colored body. The mild aroma was rye bread. The mouth feel was tingly at the start with a mild intitial hop bite. The flavor contained notes of tingly rye and hops. A very interesting flavor that I could only describe as thin yet not thin. A decent one that I would consider buying again.

22oz bottle. Poured a clear deep copper color with a thin tan head. The aroma was bready malts, spices and sweet caramel. The flavor has a bready caramel malt sweetness with cocoa upfront which gives way to a more spicy and hoppy background with a touch of citrus. Very well balanced and easy drinker.

Bottle, from State Line Liquors (Elkton, MD). Pours reddish amber, capped with a moderate-sized ten head. Aroma of caramel, rye, grapefruity hops, and some herbs. Rye hits the palate first, with dark chocolate, citrus, chili power, and toffee rounding out the edges. Rye and caramel cling to the palate for a fairly long finish. Flavorful and very drinkable.

Bottle sample at a tasting. ThanksDavid Cohen! Clear reddish-amber color. Aroma of piney hops, resin, some nuts, slight spiciness, some rye bread and some fruitiness. Sweetish flavor with some chewy malt at first, and later some spiciness and a bitter finish with resinous hops. Medium-bodied. OK

At a tasting, thanks David, almost no ght copper colour with just a touch of haziness, aroma of malt with some fruit and chocolate, flavours of malt, pronounced alcoholic bitterness, and some dark chocolate which lingers to a long sourish aftertaste, meduim bodied, no hint of caraway.

Thanks David, red to copper with a small cream colored head, aroma of cherries, yeast and a touch of toffee, flavor has some malt, yeast, dry fruits and a bit of scotch, finish is hoppy and bitter, body is medium. Hope might come with the Hop.