River City Baby Bock

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

On my way between trips in Oklahoma City (OK) and Kansas City (MO), I stopped by to visit a friend in Wichita. As part of this trip I wanted to go to the River City Brewing Company so that I could check off Kansas as a state I've had beer from. I was planning on running the gamut of the beers that this brewery had to offer, but wound up getting a huge cold earlier in the week and one beer was all I could muster up the strength for drinking. It happened to be their seasonal Baby Bock.

The beer came out in a nice tall lager glass and looked great...not just because I haven't had a beer in like 5 days, but because it had a very dark brown, almost black, color to it and a nice thick tan head. The smell of sweet chocolates and roasted malts were just oozing out of the glass.

The minute this beer hit my lips, I was in pure heaven. Going almost a week without beer, it was weird to re-introduce my mouth to beer with such a high alcohol content brew. Clocking in at 8.5%, I was shocked at how smooth drinking and flavorful, yet not alcoholicy tasting, this beer actually was. I loved it. This beer was very flavorful and those chocolates and roasted malts that you pick up in the aroma are fully there in the flavor as well with maybe even a slight hint of smoke. The kicker with me and these doppelbocks, is this slight teriyaki taste that my tongue always seems to pick up on when drinking this style beer. I makes this a great beer to pair up with a meat dinner. It's like a full meal with even a chocolate kiss at the end.

If this is a glimpse of how things are done at the River City Brewing Company in Wichita, KS, then I'm on board. Great job from these guys. I was floored that such a good beer could come from a state not usually known for it's breweries.