One variety of beer that has consistently underwhelmed me since I started taking beer seriously has been the doppelbock. This has always bugged me, because I remeber early in my drinking, I tried a doppelbock from a tiny Seattle microbrewery run by a friend of my dad that I enjoyed greatly, even though I've long forgotten the specifics of its flavor. However, they've been BUSTO for years now, and nothing I've had since has really been all that good. Part of this may be due to only having tried American doppelbocks. Like with hefeweizens, it may be that the Germans are (almost) the only people who can get this style right. So, on my last trip to BotW, I picked up two German doppelbocks, one from Ayinger and one from Weihenstephaner, two of the best German brewers in my experience. Tonight, I'm going to review the doppelbock from Weihenstephaner. I paid $3.35 for a half liter of 7.5% beer, a little on the weaker side of doppelbocks.
The beer pours a dark but translucent (not cloudy) brown. There's almost no head, which is typical for this style.
The aroma for this beer is better than other doppelbocks I've had. It still has the alcohol and cough syrup smells that have put me off from others in this style, but there's a hint of coffee in there that gives me hope. The flavor hits with a heavy malt, followed by a hint of the cough syrup and the coffee. It's that cough syrup that's put me off to this whole style, but since it's competing with the coffee, it doesn't overwhelm as much. It's a sweet beer, and the sweet malt sticks to my mouth long after I've swallowed. This is the best doppelbock I've had outside of the distant memory, but it doesn't exactly floor me, either. I vacillated between 3 and 3.5 for this one, but I settled on an optimistic [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img][img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img][img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] and a half [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. I felt like giving this a 3 would almost be punitive for letting me down somewhat, and conversely, this is the best doppelbock I've had so far. I'm not sure if I'll be buying this again, but for anyone out there who likes this style, this is definitely one to try.