Hancock Old Gambrinus Beer Dark
Hancock Bryggerierne

Copenhagen 23/9 2016. 33 cl bottle from Meny, Østerfælled Torv, Kbh. Ø. Chubby beer-drinking King with a white beard on the label. On the back of the bottle they advise you to substitute your red wine with this noble brew. Looking at the ABV I am not too surprised by this suggestion.

Pours clear dark amber with an off-white head. A bit bubbly. Head disappears quite fast leaving a thin patch of foam unable to cover the surface of the beer. Looks like a Coca Cola. No lacing.

Aroma of sweet malts, stinky socks and metallic alcohol. Brown sugar, caramel. Sugary. Grainy sourness. Alcohol.

Medium strong carbonation. Fairly thick, oily and lightly tingling texture.

Flavor is sweet and sugary and certainly packs an alcoholic punch. Only very subdued bitterness.

You have to like your wine really sweet if you accept to trade in your red wine for this.

330 ml bottle, in Denmark. Aroma of oak and brown sugar, improves as it warms up. Rich sweet flavour (a bit too sweet?), quite alcoholic but still nice. Hancock obviously have put some real effort into this beer.

 

purchased at 1000fryd in aalborg.

A: just very very dark but reddish through the light. no head.

S: alcohol, fruit and heaviness. nothing strong.

T: intense, heavy with alcohol, somewhat sweet and carries the body of chocolate.

M: smooth, with an edge of sparkle.

O: Like a very heavy porter. good, pleasant although quite heavy.

A: Dark brown-red in apperance with a 1 cm head and no lacing.
S: Smells of malt but mainly of alcohol.
T: Tastes surprisingly sweet. It does not really taste much of alcohol.
M: Light body with very fine light carbonation. I like my beers with a thicker body, but this one is not bad for its style.
D: Tastes better than expected with such a high ABV.

This beer pours a darker amber. The head is thick and stays around for a while while lacing. The head is a tan color. The aroma is sweet. The taste is very light on the tongue and dry due to the high alcohol content. I would have expected this beer to have a more malty taste, but it doesn't.

We sampled this at my homebrew club meeting, so I only had a taster-sized sample. Dark brown color under a thin head. Taste is more light a lighter Belgian than a bock to me. Alcohol and sugar taste are apparent in a touch of rum. Not much to make it stand out, but enjoyable nonetheless.

I had heard good things about this beer before buying it in Denmark. I don't know, maybe i missed something, but mine was horribly sweet and kind of had an extremely thick, sweet, syruppy mollasses like malt flavour, not really my kind of beer at all. A bit unbalanced and one dimensional IMHO, actually more than "a bit", extremely unbalanved and one dimensional.