Schwarze Gams
Privatbrauerei Loncium

From the out of date bottle, it pours a hazy reddish brown color with a nice light tan head that slowly reduces. The nose gets sweetish malt with notes of dark fruit. The mouth gets some sweet malt as well, with a mild aftertaste - overall not much to it.

Poured from 330mL bottle into my Higgins Ale Works tulip. Best by 4/11/26.

Appearance: rich, dark brown hue with some murk to the body and a finger of frothy tan foam.

Smell: quite sweet with notes of dates and chocolate, which I like, but there’s also a thin-ness or something to the aroma. It kinda reminds me of cola, actually.

Taste: the aroma had some promise, but there’s kind of a flatness to the flavor here. There’s an acidity that isn’t quite balanced by the sweetness, and while there’s some good stuff here, it comes off as kind of bland.

Mouthfeel: medium body with a decent carbonation and creaminess.

Overall: there are some flavors that I like in this beer, but it comes together as kind of bland. It’s not offensive or anything, though.

 

Really dark brown color with brown head. Aroma is not very intense, just some roasted malt, bread crust and cola. Taste starts with munich style dark malts, roasted coffee and a bit of dark sugar. Medium body and carbonation. Really well balanced and easy to drink.

 

This poured a dark brown, almost black except around the edges with a thin strikingly contrasting white head which dissipated fairly quickly leaving small islands on top. The nose leads with burnt toast, roasted nuts, espresso and unsweetened chocolate. I didn't get any hops on the nose of this one. The burnt toast came to the front of the taste, along with espresso and molasses. This was vaguely sweet with zero hops to be found. I closed my eyes and let the beer coat my mouth and found it had a medium body with adequate carbonation and a slight alcohol burn at the end. Wasn't sure what to expect. Glad I got a chance to try it but not something I could sit down a have a couple of in one sitting.

I'm not sure what this beer was aiming for, but I'm equally sure it didn't quite hit the mark. Specially brewed for the 2014 Beer Advent Calendar. Is is Shwarz? Is it Dunkel? It is dark, it has some chocolate and cocoa profile, it has a goat on the label. This was confusing, but it was not a complete disaster.

Day 14 of the BeerAdvent calendar.

Pours black with a small head that disappears completely. I'm wondering if my bottle is a bit off?

Nose has some dark fruit, caramel, and toffee.

Taste is disappointing. It is weak. Some dark fruit but it is very watery. It finishes dry - oddly so.

I had high hopes but I really didn't like this beer.

 

 

330ml bottle. No pasteurizing, no filtering - good to know, and good to know that a familiarity with German isn't necessary to know that. Anyways...

This beer pours a murky dark brownish amber colour, with a measly half-finger of thin, bubbly head, which leaves a few specks of lace around the glass as it quickly beats it.

It smells of oily party-mixer nuts, a bit of chalky cocoa, understated caramel, a tart apple essence, and meek leafy, herbal hops. The taste is fruity, kind of sour malt, the apple tendency not shaking itself loose, more bar-top nuttiness, nothing more that a hint of caramel and chocolate, and weakly bitter leafy, earthy hops. Very little warming
from the uptick in ABV.

The carbonation is even, and mostly flying under the radar, the body medium weight, but a bit too clingy to keep up any pretense of general smoothness. It finishes on the sweet side, but still riddled with that sour fruitiness.

One of the stranger bocks that I've yet encountered - tartness and sourness not being a usual menu staple. The dunkel side could also use a bit of a shot in the arm, so overall, I'm left fairly underwhelmed by the whole deal.

Thanks to Jim at Sherbrooke for the sample. From a 330 ml brown bottle. Pours out a translucent cloudy nut brown hue, with a brief foamy beige head.

Nutty malt with light notes of sweet chocolate and caramel on the nose, mild grassy, herbal hops, and a curious sourness.

Nutty malt up front in the flavour, some bready caramel character, sweet chocolate as well, rounded out with some spicy, grassy hops. Weird grainy sourness in the aftertaste that spars with the leafiness of the hops. Some alcohol warmth lingers in the aftertaste as well.

Medium-bodied mouthfeel, smooth texture that turns almost slippery, with low carbonation.

An okay offering for a straight Bock style, can't say there really is a lot of this style available locally, although I've been fortunate enough to judge enough homebrew versions to know my way around it. This one has some extra character to it due to the bottle conditioning.