Bunsen Bock
The Brew Keeper

Live review. Poured from a 22 oz. bomber into my Spaten Optimatory 0.5L mug. Purchased for $7.99 at Reider's Market in Painesville about 2 months ago. No observed "best by" or "freshness date" found by me on label or the bottle. 9.0% ABV

A Wow, medium brown creamy, one inch head over a gorgeous deep dark mahogany (no light comes through the middle but the edges display an excellent mahogany hue) body. Very impressive look and it looks even better in my Optimator mug. The look almost cannot be improved (a more obvious lacing would have rated it a 5.0).

S Well, not that good. There is a kind of a spoiled yeasty smell (along with the medium to dark roast malt and dark caramel smells which unfortunately are in the distance) that first hits you. It is not pleasant. It kind of reminds me of sweaty gym socks for some reason.

T eeewwww....the spoiled yeasty smell carried right over into the taste. Wow...this beer looked like it had so much promise out of the bottle...a fabulous look, love the color but this is not a good taste. Behind the putrid yeast or grains is a great tasting beer of medium to dark malt, the dark caramel and a really nice smoothness but how can you not notice the puke-like rancid taste in the front? The after taste was (thankfully) more of the goodness of this beer.

M Nice, smooth feel and if it weren't for that repulsive prominent taste I can tell that this would have been a hell of a beer.

D Not good due to the putrid taste (at least the taste in the front!).

Notes: This beer had so much potential but oh....that nasty taste (and smell!).

Hershey bar brown with orange trim. When backlit with sunshine, the beer is transparent and is darkest russet in color. The ecru colored crown is attractive. It has a firmly creamy texture and is beginning to coat the glass with better than decent lace.

The nose, although far short of Deutschland's finest, is pretty good as well. It features dark caramel and cocoa, which is a good thing for those of us who prefer the darker doppelbocks. I'm expecting good things on taste bud submersion.

Bunsen Bock is a disappointment, especially from a brewery that has a pretty good track record in my limited (but growing) experience with their beer. Doppelbocks should be rich, malty meals in a glass. This one isn't even a decent snack.

More malt would go a long way. There needs to be something to overpower the moderate tartness, a quality that definitely doesn't belong in beer of this style. TBK seems to have a problem with sourness in some of their offerings. Gotta get that fixed.

The flavor profile consists of dark caramel, sour fruit (figs, raisins), and small splashes of chocolate syrup and tangy molasses. I'm 100% sure it isn't the case, but BB tastes like its flavors are from extracts rather than from barley and hops. An average score is just out of reach.

Considering style and ABV, the mouthfeel is substandard. This brew is in serious need of bulking up and filling out. A loud escape of CO2 on crown cracking has not translated into adequate carbonation. Calling the mouthfeel lackluster is putting it kindly.

It's odd how The Brew Keeper knocks some styles out of the park and completely whiffs on others. Bunsen Bock is a called third strike because it doesn't even go down swinging. My advice: bring some bigger lumber and a bad attitude to the plate next time.

Enjoyed on-tap at the brewpub. Dark with a mocha head, lacey. Neutral aroma. Licoricey taste, some mollasses. One of the weaker ones in a fairly good lineup. Not a representative of the style. This is a good style when it works. About average mouthfeel, and it is drinkable.

Handbottled 12 oz bottle that has a white homemade label of a mean looking billy goat standing on top of frosty mug of beer. I don't know why the goat looks mean because he's standing on top of a beer and not on top of some cold mountain. On the far edges of the label is where you can find the address of the brewery, ABV of 9.0%, a brief description about the beer, and the Government warning.

Appearance: When poured into a Bell's Brewery pint glass, this Doppelbock is a murky mahagony brown with ruby red highlights all through out the beer's body. It had a poor head of foam that consisted of only 5 tan colored bubbles. These 5 tan bubbles quickly dissipated into nothing. No rings, no lace, nothing whatsoever. I tried to get the head of foam to come out by swirling it around, but it was a waste of time. It did nothing to aid the appearance.

Smell: This beer had an aroma of burned bitter dark chocolate (how could you burn dark chocolate?), roasted malts, and then it ended with a small touch of caramel and dark fruits. While they were at it, they might as well burned all the other aromas in this beer. If you could burn dark chocolate, you can burn malts, dark fruits, and caramel. This burnt aroma probably could have made the aroma smell better and given the aroma character.

Taste: I was wrong when I thought the beer was going to improve after the appearance and smell. It had a disappointing taste of watered down dark roasted malts, dark chocolate, dab of caramel, lighly sour citrus fruits, and dry roasted hops. The taste wouldn't have been so bad if they didn't water down ALL the flavors and they got rid of the lightly sour fruits. Well, I could possibly live with the sour citrus fruits in this beer, but not with the flavors being watered down. That's going a little too far.

Mouthfeel: I do have to hand it to them when it came to one part of the mouthfeel. They did mask the high 9.0% ABV. I couldn't feel or taste it. The other part of the beer I can't hand it over to them is the aftertaste. The aftertaste was too light with roasted malts, dark chcoolate, and roasted hops. It tasted like they watered down the flavors again. Simple as that.

Drinkability: I has this beer on-tap and in bottles and neither one was even remotely impressive or even that good. I wouldn't suggest any version of this beer. Back to the drawing board with this one Brew Keeper!