Black & Blue - Dogfish Head Brewery

kpantz

Pennsylvania

3.23/5  rDev -11.7%
look: 3.5 | smell: 3 | taste: 3 | feel: 4 | overall: 3.5

Executive Summary: A surprisingly accessible beer from these guys. Pleasant warm weather beer, but nothing mindblowing.

Appearance: A purple-tinged ruby pour, fairly clear. Frothy head is a pale pink. Yes, pink. Moderate lacing.

Smell: Malts and fruit. Pretty simple aroma here. Definite berry presence.

Taste: Honestly? It's relatively weak in the palate department, at least as far as DFH goes. It's one of those cases where the flavors feel a little "far away," though what of it I do get is fairly refreshing and pleasant. Alcohol is pretty well hidden, but you do get the warming sensation that tells you that you shouldn't be pounding it.

Mouthfeel: Pretty fervent carbonation attacks the tongue. It's pretty consistent with some of the other fruit beers I've had, so I'd imagine it was intentional. Not too thick or syrupy.

Drinkability: Pretty easygoing. Light flavors and body make this a pretty refreshing ale. That said, the flavors aren't prevalent enough to hold my interest for too long.

Serving type: bottle

04-04-2007 02:47:06 | More by kpantz

foggylovesbeer

Delaware

3.18/5  rDev -13.1%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 3 | feel: 2 | overall: 3

Just purchased a 750ml of this new seasonal from Dogfish, bottled on date of 2/12/07. Was looking forward to this one, but this brew let me down.
It poured nicely, developed a decent size head and had a nice purple/ruby color. There was little head retention. Had a nice smell and initial taste was good, not overpowering on the fruit, although it did leave me actually wanting to taste more of the berries. The mouthfeel fell flat and left a chalky feeling on the back of my tounge. It's not a bad beer, but my high standards for Dogfish left me expecting to be blown away by this one and it did nothing of the sort.

Serving type: bottle

04-03-2007 17:45:08 | More by foggylovesbeer

TheodorHerzl

Indiana

3.18/5  rDev -13.1%
look: 3 | smell: 2.5 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3

This if my first review, but I bought this beer on the recommendation from a friend. My first taste was really a surprise since I was expecting a overly heavy fruit flavor, but my first four or five drinks were very nice, but after that the mouthfeel and drinkability began to fail on me. I still enjoyed this beer very much, but probably wouldn't purchase again.

It poured a deep purple/reddish color with a head that was gone within seconds and like I said before the first few drinks were very pleasant.

Serving type: bottle

03-31-2007 00:37:56 | More by TheodorHerzl

bigbelcher

Arizona

3.5/5  rDev -4.4%
look: 3.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3

Very unimpressive beer from Dogfish Head. Pours a dark purple, berry like color, flavor and taste was just so so, no better, no worse than any other fruit beer. C'mon Sam, show us the love. Beer had at GABF in Denver so only a small sample. Poured by Sam the man himself.

Serving type: bottle

10-03-2006 13:31:02 | More by bigbelcher

Higravity

Michigan

1.83/5  rDev -50%
look: 4 | smell: 2.5 | taste: 1.5 | feel: 1.5 | overall: 1.5

I was really looking forward to having a brew-pub only beer on my travels to Rehobeth Beach, but this was not what I wanted. The premiss for this beer was taking a belgian-like recipe with a strain of yeast and during primary fermentation feeding blueberries and blackberries everydayto the yeast beasties. Man was this a painfull thing like almost all of their spirits. Bruise color no real head. Smells like boozy berries. Tastes like bad berries wine. Yuck, maybe they will be able to turn this around the next time they make it like they did with Fort.

Serving type: on-tap

09-11-2006 19:54:36 | More by Higravity

weeare138

Pennsylvania

2.45/5  rDev -33.1%
look: 3.5 | smell: 2.5 | taste: 2.5 | feel: 2.5 | overall: 2

Thanks to TomDecapolis for this...
They don't do growlers of this but this was a special circumstance were we could via the kind folks at Rehoboth.
Appears a pinkish, purple toned, dense, muddy crimson with a small white head that quickly fizzles out. Tiny speckles of lacing are left around the glass.
Smell is very vinous, with notes of over ripened blackberries, and sugary corn syrup. I would've thought this was simply a wine that hadn't fermented all the way out and had simply gone awry somewhere.
Taste is of the same winey, tart aromas that I struggle to accept.
Mouthfeel is tart, wine-like, mostly sour, and sticking to the sides of the tongue. There just doesn't seem to be any sort of balance in this brew.
It's like bad medicine mixed with a caramelized, concentrated wine mix. This is worse than the sacramental wine that we would taste when we were alter boys...blech!

Serving type: growler

09-08-2006 19:08:12 | More by weeare138

chOAKbarrell

Maryland

1.5/5  rDev -59%
look: 3 | smell: 2.5 | taste: 1 | feel: 2 | overall: 1

Only available on tap at the Rehoboth Beach brewpub location, which is a good thing. This is a sour beer, and not in a good lambic way. Sour as in an off-tasting, bad-wine kind of way. Black & Blue seems to have a lot of characteristics of bad cheap wine, actually. It comes across as not being aged enough. Maybe if it was left to sit for a while it would mellow out, but as it stands now, this is an offensive-tasting, intrusive beer. The Black & Blue's cousin beer, "Red & White" was completely sold out in under a month, whereas B&B was still available, which should tell you something. Overpriced, too alcoholic, and difficult to finish. Avoid.

Serving type: on-tap

09-07-2006 22:59:52 | More by chOAKbarrell

ggaughan

Pennsylvania

3.93/5  rDev +7.4%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 3.5

On tap at the DFH brewpub in Rehoboth. I took a day off from work to drive down to DFH to try both this and the Red & White. Worth the long trip. I categorized this beer as a fruit beer although DFH calls it a golden Belgian style ale. Since there was no option for that, I thought a fruit beer was the nearest thing.

The beer poured a deep red/purple color, very dense and with some fruit specs floating around in the body. It almost looked like the fruit was pureed in the beer. Very interesting look. There was a nice medium pink head which led to solid lacing on the glass. The head and body look very similar to what a Lindeman's Framboise would look like but the beers are no comparison as there is real fruit in this one.

Upon your first sniff of this beer it is pretty evident that it was brewed with a ton of fruit, about 300 lbs of fresh blackberries and blueberries to be exact. The taste is spicey, a bit tart and definitely led by blueberries and supported by the blackberries. You can also get a touch of the hops on the backend that round out this beer and a strong bit of carbonation running through. Although the fruit and spice blend well to form a pretty smooth, not too sweet beer, you definitely get the high abv burn on this one, more so than with the DFH Red & White. Although this beer is pretty extreme from the amount of fruit added and the high abv, it is suprisingly drinkable and smooth and worth a try if you can get it before it runs out.

Serving type: on-tap

08-23-2006 21:47:25 | More by ggaughan