Grand Teton Mammoth Maibock

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

Thanks to omhper. Pours out in a hazy bronze colour with a medium-sized lasting white foam. Biscuity and bready malty aroma with interesting hop components of pepper, berries, caramel and roasted. nuts. Full malty flavour of bread, nuts, pale malts, pears and peppery alcohol. Malty flavour of caramel, dried fruit, white bread and subtle but lingering spicy and grassy hops. Nice pale bock!

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

Bottled. Hazy golden colour, mediumsized white head. Aroma is fruits, refreshing, grassy hops and quite strong bready malts. Flavour is toffee, fruity hops, big maltyness and some spices. Aftertaste s very fruity and grassy.

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

February 2007 Bottle Date, Sampled November 2007
Pours with a lightly chill hazed, orangish copper color and is topped by a frothy, somewhat large bubbled, initially half-finger thick, pale tan colored head. The aroma smells of sweet grain, some light honey notes, a touch of hay and a nice bread-like backbone. The aroma is fairly soft overall, but that may be partly due to the fact that the beer is a little cold. As the beer warms up a bit the aroma just gets even more malt focused, there is not really any new aromatics, just an amplification of what was already noted; at times though the honey / sweet malt notes get amplified a bit more. Really this is quite aromatic once it warms up enough to open up.

This has a spritzy carbonation to it, which helps to lighten up the chewy, medium full malt character that is typical of a bock strength beer. This has a certain sweetness to it, but like a good bock should, it does not have as much sweetness as the body might suggest. Much hoppier in the flavor than the aroma suggested; a sip starts out with a soft herbal note, but this gains in strength through to the finish where a nice, solid bitterness takes hold. The hop character is not overwhelming or even a dominant note, but the herbal character provides a nice counterpoint / foil to the malt focus and the bitterness (in combination with the carbonation), helps to dry out the finish. The malt character starts out with a nice grain-like sweetness, picks up some soft honey notes, a touch of light caramel, some toffee notes (which I wouldn't have expected from a 100% pilsner malt beer), perhaps a hint of butterscotch (which should be a mix of malt notes and perhaps some imperceptible diacetyl) and some toasted malt flavors that lean towards biscuit notes and caramelized bread crust.

This is a nice example of a Mai Bock, quite tasty and it has the requisite malt focus, but I definitely like the distinctly noticeable hop contribution that it has. Don't get me wrong though, the hops are not huge here and are even within the bounds of the hoppier Mai Bocks I have had in Germany (though when fresh it might have been a bit hoppier).