Samichlaus Classic Holzfass 2010 - Brauerei Schloss Eggenberg

biboergosum

Alberta (Canada)

3.58/5  rDev -13.3%
look: 3 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 4

1L bottle, 2011 edition.

This beer pours a dark dishwater brown hue, with one skinny finger of thinly foamy, bubbly dirty beige head, which evaporates rather quickly, leaving a low berm of ebbing lace around the glass.

It smells of overripe apple mush, sharp grainy malt, some astringent dark sugary fruit, a musty, fibrous woodiness, and some sweet, simmering booze. The taste is very sweet apple and other muddled orchard fruit, a soaked dark bready malt, some adequately impressive noble hops, a sugury cheap whiskey woodiness, and a mildly dank mustiness.

The bubbles are there, but pretty tame and innocuous, the body a sturdy medium weight, well-buoyed by the sugar, from all sources, and fairly smooth, in the face of that threatening, though still admirably restrained, alcohol edge. It finishes still rather sweet, the barrel aiding and abetting, and cutting the inherent malt sugar inateness all the more.

A decent attempt at putting the wood to the 'World's Strongest Lager' - it does do a fair job of scaling back the overage endemic malt sweetness of this affair, and somehow amps up the perception of the hops too. Huh. Weirdly drinkable, at least if you have no problem with the somewhat crazy ABV.

Serving type: bottle

09-14-2012 21:00:18 | More by biboergosum

LiquidAmber

Washington

3.6/5  rDev -12.8%
look: 4.5 | smell: 3 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

Review from 8/2010 notes. Poured into a Gulden Draak tulip. Pours a nice red amber with a nice off white head and lacing. Aroma somewhat sour, not revealing the flavor. First taste is almost cloying sweet caramel, which develops into fruit flavors and caramel, sweet malt with a hint of alcohol. I like sweet beers and this one is almost too sweet at first. Light spicing and sweet malt finish. Not that well balanced.

Serving type: bottle

08-02-2012 21:30:03 | More by LiquidAmber

Sunnanek

Sweden

4.35/5  rDev +5.3%
look: 3.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4

A: Pours dark burgundy with a small compact off-white head that slowly sinks into decent lacings.

S: Wow!! Lots of sweetness – tart and molasses! More like a very nice Port than anything else. Vanilla from the oak-cask. Rich dark dried fruits. Some coconuts.

T: Taste follows the smell; actually – this is very like the ordinary Samichlaus besides the vanilla/oakyness . If cellared proparly the ordinary one is very complex and balanced – this one; at once.

M: Long sweet aftertaste. Full body and almost no carbonation. The alcohol is not too obvious.

O: Fantastic beer, but a Doppelbock? I’m not sure, I don’t know what else but as a Doppelbock not quite right.

Serving type: bottle

03-08-2012 11:53:42 | More by Sunnanek