What a super nice surprise this was. I wasn't expecting such a great beer on this one, but thats fine with me. Color is clear amber, getting close to copper with a creamy foam of off-white hue and is an inch high. Smell is faint at first, but gets deeper for some reason as you go in, a very nice sweet malt with a super nice sourdough bread with nuts, bagel-like, quite nice. The flavor is quite nice as well, very lightly sweet and creamy smooth with bread tones and caramel malt. Feel is really nice as well, lightly creamy and buttery with super calming smoothness and a bit of chewyness with a slightly bread dough drying in the finish. More please, one very nice, smooth, drinkable brew.

Good solid beer. Had this bottle at Bodega Brew Pub downtown La Crosse, Wisconsin USA. Poured with a very nice head and lots of lace. Nice dark amber/red color. Light malty aroma. Very well balanced flavor with a bit of dryness make this a great session beer.

Nice rich malty aroma. I got a full nose, previous rater got little nose. Crystal clear amber color. Big, pillowy, dense head of off tan foam. This is a good looking beer! Nice sturdy malt profile. Hops are present, but very reserved, which is very nice. Served fresh in the appropriate straight sided glass, this is one fine beer!

3rd RERATE (4/15/07): My ratings are yo-yoing on this brew. I decided to give it another try because of my tastes in alts have become more refined over the years. I think the Headless Man recipe has been changed because the beer I sampled yesterday was much better than the previous example I tried way back in 2003. It was more complex, spicy, and the hops were more assertive as well. They’ve also smoothed out the finish. Even the color seems "richer" somehow, and the body is bit more full now too. I’m back to considering this to be a fine example of the alt type. 2ND RERATE (9/1/03): I really don’t like downgrading my ratings of beers but I have to do it in this case. I tried two different bottles of this beer over the weekend and neither tasted as good as I remembered from my earlier samples. There was a pronounced sour taste in there--interestingly, I noticed this same offputting taste in the bottles of Bitter Woman IPA I tried last weekend too. Fortunately, there’s still the same great bitterness I remembered from earlier samples though...RERATE (6/24/03): From the bottle--I’m bumping this up a notch. The second batch is even better than the first I tried back in August of ’02. This beer looks absolutely gorgeous in the glass. Very fine head that doesn’t dissipate. Wonderful mouthfeel. The interplay between the malt & hops in this brew is really nice. ORIGINAL RATING: This is the second ’altbier’ style of beer I’ve tried, and I think it’s marvelous. Gorgeous crystalline amber color, very clear. The head sticks around throughout most of the glass. Sweet & malty initial taste followed by a nice bitter finish. Lots of depth & taste to this brew.

A very nice session ale. I made the mistake of trying it on a hot and humid day, and it just didn’t seem to fit. I tried it again on a cooler day and it fit in just fine. Not necessarily my "type" of beer, but a pretty good representation of an altbier.