Atlantic Brother Adams Bragget Ale

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

Nose of raisins, honey, cinnamon. Slightly fogged medium copper body topped with an off-white head that is short lived and provides no lace. Mouth is fairly full, a bit slippery and low but acceptable carbonation. Flavor is sweet with alcohol warming....honey, carmel or crystal malts, ripe dark fruit, sweet finish. Interestingly this was from a tour of the brewery and is a bottle of unknown age.

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

pours like a dark barleywine. 1/2 barley half honey. nice restrained fruity nose, with a hint of earthy hops and spice. easy drinking for a brew so strong. the flavor was nice, but maybe more suited for summertime...it just didn't do a whole lot for me.

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

(Green's Trip: 08) I have seen reviews here and there on this brew so when I saw it sitting on a shelf amongst many other fine ales, I decided to pick this one up and purchase it. Aroma on this brew is very aromatic with some sweet maltiness coming through as well as some caramelized brown sugar and some honey with some earthy overtones like some fig and dark fruits. Appearance is a slightly hazy, reddish-orange to rusty-amber when held to the light with a smaller head on top that is creamy and an off-white in color and diminishes to a stringy lacing that adheres to the glass. Mouthfeel is medium-bodied with tons of honey complexity as well as malty balance and is rather dry with a palate that is well-rounded and a bit slippery. Flavor is of honey with some sour notes and tartness as well as some sweet malt with an aftertaste that is dry-like and woody to some extent and a bit of sherry coming through with a finish that is clean, dry, complex, and strong with some aloholic overtones and sweetness. Overall, this is a very complex brew and is like a cross between barleywine and mead and very unique and worth buying again to let it age with the best of em'...

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

Hmmm not sure, different then all the meads i have had before. Poured a dark orange color with good head. Aroma was of honey and grains. Flavor was very Belgian like some light fruits, sweet. Good not sure if this one even goes in a style of beers, but good though.

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

Poured an orangey-golden color, decent initial head, frothy. The lacing was even ok. The aroma was honey, barley, grainy. The flavor was a golden belgian base (pears, cookies, apples, white grapes) along with the mead honeyness, somewhat of a sweet slant on the mead-Belgian style. Mouthfeel was carbonated, moderately to heavily bodied. A neat concoction, but when all is said and done, I'd probably rather have either a belgian or a mead, not a blend.

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

More like a beer than a mead, which is good for me. Dark honey brown color with even a little head. Sweet belgianesque aroma. Sweet candied sugar, belgiany yeasties with a touch of honey. Good stuff.

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

Pours a clear russet with a fizzing head. The aroma is alcohol backed up by a caramel malt melding with honey. It’s a bit hot from the alcohol, but this is not off-putting. Pretty tasty overall.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 9

Poured a copper color with off white bubbles on top, light, sticky, lacing on the glass. Aroma of sweet honey, herbs, barley, spicy yeast, and some alcohol as well. Taste of passion fruit, sweet honey, light yeastiness, and faint alcohol. Really a nice mead.

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

Besides my few bottles of Allagash, this was the last bottle of beer that I brought back with me from my last trip to Down East Maine in January. Brought this back for my big-beer n' mead drinking buddy Bill (whom I saw at the local homebrew club meeting last night), and we immediately poped this open to share with the group.

Ever have to write a book-report in school, and forget about it until the day it was due? Did you frantically try writing the report based on only reading the back cover? We, if so, then if said this beer is "an even split of mead and barleywine", we would both know that is the same thing as trying to write a book-report from the back-cover synopsis only. For this beer's classy looking lable says pretty much the same thing..., that is to say "a blending in the kettle of malt and honey", or words to that affect.

So rather ramble on about the Bragget style (and/or parrot what the label says about it), let's just say that I respected the craftiness and sure gumption to do something different, I can't say it's all that enjoyable to me. The honey of course imparts a mead-like feel to the situation, and it doesn't help that I dislike mead. And, in turn, the mead also brings out a wine-like feel to the barleywine-ish component -- but again, I'm not a fan of wine, either.

But I would remiss in dismissing this altogether, and have to give it some props for going out on a limb. A unique ale/mead experiment that I'm glad I've tried.
//TB