Three Floyds Alpha Klaus Christmas Porter

Wow, easily "the hop-est". This is the most bitter porter I have ever had. It tastes like they stuck cubes of sappy burnt wood chips into the boil, and the result is a wonder to behold. One does not drink this beer, this beer let’s itself be drunk under a strict understand that, while drinking this beer, it will amaze you and you damn well better be ready for it.

A small black head introduces this hoppy FFF beer. The sweetness of the Mexican sugar and the malts, along with the fantastic hop profile... wow. Chocolate, expresso, and sugar, not to mention hops.... a bitter, coffee finish.... I am all over the place with this one. But I like it.

another wonderful beer by fff. pours oily black with minor head. aroma is sweet brown sugar, expresso, choco, HOPS, and raisin sweetness. taste is as the aroma advertises with a wonderful leafy american hoppiness supported with great expresso and brown sugar tones. finish is both expresso and hop bitter. solid stuff.

Deep, opaque brown with a thick, dark tan head. Aroma is chocolate and roasted malt with dry, fruity hops. The flavor is dark roasted malt, bittersweet chocolate and the usual Floyds fruit and pine hops backing it up. Medium bodied, smooth and creamy. Very nice.

I didnt sense the ton of hops that this supposbly has iin it. Very good stuff, very rich and smooth. Doesnt have that bitter coco taste like some do. pretty good stuff, but didnt stand out to much from the sea of porters out there.

This beer wad served in a Delirium Tremens tulip glass. An aggressive pour produced a one finger brown head that quickly is reduced to a thin, self-replenishing film. The beer is a nearly opaque dark brown. The aroma is powerful and complex, beautifully balancing crisp chocolate malt, aromatic hops and a crisp fruity edge. I am enjoying the aroma so much I am reluctant to drink. The mouth-feel is medium-bodied, a bit lighter than expected, and somewhat creamy with carbonation. The flavor is bold and complex, leading and finishing with a sharp roasted malt bitterness, yet with the Alpha hop character constantly lurking in the shadows of my palate.

Despite the symbolism of silent nights and spiritual reverence, the modern Christmas holiday is absolutely a season of excess. Left-leaning celebrators have long opined on the holiday’s sell out to ravenous capitalism, but the problem of excess extends beyond that. The culture of Christmas has gone beyond the pale of Germanic tradition into something characterized by bright colored lights, mythical creatures and a litany of songs. Awesome. But the greatest excess, the grandest excess, and the unhealthiest excess is the culinary Christmas. Throwing away diets at the behest of a holiday, we justify a month long gorging with a living-life-to-its-fullest mentality, for fear that if we don’t indulge in one more glass of egg-nog or one more square of fudge than that year’s Christmas celebration will be tainted and irreversibly marked as the worst Christmas ever. I’m all for the feast, even if my body isn’t, but I never expected to see this unchecked Yuletide hunger extend to from food to beer. I mean, Dr. Seuss found curious dopplegangers for the roast beef (roast beast) and the year’s hot new toy (the Ting-tingler, duh) but there was never a beer in the table for the Who’s of Whoville. We may blame this on the book’s target audience of whom beer was still an inaccessible drink, but I believe it is because there is no equivalent culture of excess for Christmas seasonal beers. The brews that do line up on the seasonal shelf are probably had sparingly, compared to the Christmas roast-ham, all five pounds weighing each sleepy eater all the way to bed at every supper. Mind you, Christmas is a holiday where consumption may be uncontrollable, but quality is neither sacrificed nor suppressed. That’s why the Alpha Klaus is a prime candidate to plant the seed for a new Christmas tradition. I’ll admit I don’t know whether the Alpha Klaus is actually released near Christmas or not, but I’ll defend its place as a Christmas beer here, in the hopes that Americans may find a way to glut themselves on a seasonal brew alongside their fruit logs and gift certificates from Sharper Image. The Alpha Klaus is a nice, warm brown, the color of oxidized apple flesh, with head piled to the brim with tiny, shiny bubbles that mimic brown pearls. A few minutes after my pour the mushrooming head settled down and began to quake, eventually flopping over into a plateau shape. I never knew a beer could be so animated. However, the Alpha Klaus doesn’t touch on its rich, tappable decadence until the aroma has a chance to punch through the bubbly bulwark, immediately mesmerizing the nose with the aroma of apples and hickory smoke. I begin to feel like I’m at a cider house, when some equally cold-repellant aromas drift into my nostrils: barbeque, raisin, sparkling cider, hearty glazed carrots and katsudon sauce. All are perfectly blended to create a warm, low, slow, sweet amalgam with the sophistry of European cuisine and enough sugary charm to placate a child. The taste inherits the finer points of the aroma. A simple sip opens with an escalating sweetness, beginning with a natural apple flavor and dark chocolate, with the competing tangy bitterness and cocoa bitterness playing a beautiful duet on the tongue. Whipped cream follows quickly, settling the heated competition, and then sassafras enters the fray to offer a second round of root beer oriented sweetness. After this first wave of flavors settles down into a quieter self-discussion on the palate, a quenching, slightly sweet slightly bitter iced tea flavor makes a small appearance, followed by marshmallow. For a winter-time beer it’s not heavy, or cumbersome. The mouth feel is clear and lucid, easy to manipulate in the mouth and easier to swallow – almost fluffy. Three Floyds Alpha Klaus is a beer that begs to be had when the drinker is already comfortable, far from the elements and securely blanketed in at least three layers of soft cloth and placed within a two meter radius of a roaring fireplace. The dynamics of the taste are somewhat uninteresting, but the flavors that are there are immeasurable delicious and harmonious. If there is a beer to spearhead the campaign for a beer to go with that pile of sweets, then this is a prime candidate. Even if it doesn’t succeed, I know that this will be a bottle that I myself will pursue with the same feral persistence that many shoppers walk into stores with come that time of year, when joy, jubilation and the fiercest of rivalries flare up across the country.

Dark brown beer with a creamy brown head. Fairly earthy, leafy hop aroma, some nice chewy, herbal hop character on the nose. Flavour is lovely, soft cocoa and bitter chocolate, some nice sweet chewy maltiness. Strong chocolate and toast. Soft bitterness and great herbal hop flavour.