Alaskan Brewing PIlot Series: Birch Bock

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 8

Made with birch syrup I expected a wintergreen background flavor. Perhaps this changes with the fermentation, or mutates or something funky. It has a good dopplebock color and rich carmelly flavor with something wild and exotic. Good to take on a trip to the wilderness or to drink while waiting for the Paulding Mystery Light to come out, but one thing it might also do is bring the moose out of the woods. When I drank it in the Sylvania Wilderness the very next day I saw a moose.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Sampled on 4/28/2012. This Dopplebock pours a medium copper red color from a 22oz bottle. Medium sized off- white foamy head, with decent retention. The aroma is caramel, fruity and sweet, with birch and a touch of maple. A medium bodied dopplebock. The malts are caramel, fruity and sweet. The birch is more in the aroma than the flavor but its there. The hops are herbal and earthy. Mild carbonation. A touch sweet, but that should be expected in a dopplebock. Nice balance. Very smooth. Nice residual sweetness. Mouthfeel is full and round. Finish is clean and smooth. Aftertaste is slightly sweet.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 6

22oz bottle. Pours ruby amber with a small fizzy off-white head that quickly goes to a thin film.

The aroma is sweet caramel and toffee, maple and honey.

The flavor is sweet sugary caramel and toffee with a slightly bitter drying finish. The mouthfeel is medium bodied with low carbonation.

Overall, the syrup adds interesting notes to the doppelbock. It's a bit on the sweet side for me.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 7

A slightly above average beer from Alaskan. Looks dark gold with thin head that doesn't last long. Mouthfeel is pretty thin for an 8.5%er, a little watery for a bock. Flavor is good though, sweet, bock-malty, a bit of alcohol present as well as a dash of hops, nice balance.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

a nice beer, sweetened with birch syrup ala perserverance ale (and life and limb). without the honey that was also present in perserverance, this beer is not AS sweet, though still leaning that way as a malt-heavy style with syrup added. but it's not overdone, and you get the sense that under the syrup addition, which was quite nice in the nose and flavor, that this would make a damn fine doppelbock on it's own. well done - a nice treat.