Dubbel Vission
Aftershock Brewing Co.

Hits all the right notes for this style in my opinion. Banana bread and sweet spices on the nose. Taste follows. Big wet mouthfeel with enough carbonation but finishes with a nice mostly dry backend with those sweet malts and spices fading quickly leaving you wanting more. Nice.

With a bold bronze to light sunburst finish color, it boasts a bright, vivid lemon and apricot flavor along with other dried fruits and a subtle bubblegum malt for the backbone. It has a great mouthfeel overall, but has that tangy grapefruit aftertaste. This will be a great beer for those who like grapefruit. Otherwise, the Dark Truth from Boulevard Brewing Company is a nice alternative, along with the Kilt Lifter Scotch Ale from Moylan’s and, if you’re lucky to find it, the Shegöat from the Bruery.

 

 

 

Poured into a Gulden Draak tulip. Pours a medium to dark red-copper amber with a half finger off-white head with great retention and lacing. Aroma of sweet caramel malt, Belgian yeast, cloves, banana and mild dark dried fruit. Flavor follows, sweet caramel malt, fresh and dried dark fruit, clove, Belgian yeast; finishes with sweet toffee and fruit flavors. Creamy, almost syrupy bodied with good carbonation. Initially a bit too sweet, but there are plenty of good flavor here to cover the sweetness and ABV. Named presumably as a strong dubbel, the sweet fruit flavors overlap into quadrupel territory. Belgian strong dark is a good choice for category, quad would have worked too. A bit too intense for a traditional dubbel. An older bottle, which may have been in its favor; the flavors are mellow and well integrated with a hint of oxidation which fit well. I liked this quite a bit and was pleasantly surprised. Not for the sweet averse.

 

 

 

On tap at Aftershock Brewing Company in Temecula, CA.

Pours a hazy dark orange with a foamy bone head that settles to a partial film on top of the beer. Small streaks of lace form around the glass on the drink down. Smell is of malt, caramel, banana, and spice aromas. Taste is much the same with caramel and spice flavors on the finish. There is a mild amount of spice bitterness on the palate with each sip. This beer has a low level of carbonation with an almost flat and medium bodied mouthfeel. Overall, this is a pretty good beer but I think it smells better than it tastes.

Minimal head when poured into the St. Bernardus globe, and virtually no suds after 30 seconds. Just a tickle of carbonation in the mouth. Dark coppery amber, a pretty color at least. Sweet and flat, but with a slight spicy flavor. I don't taste much in the way of Belgian yeastiness, it seems to be all candy with a slight dryness at the very end. Pleasant roasted malt flavor with a slightly woody finish. Pleasing warm spicy aromas with an interesting scent of cedar in the nose.

From the 22 oz bottle bought at Barons Marketplace on Point Loma Blvd where four of these Aftershock beers had suddenly appeared.

Note: I'm going with the unexpected and possibly illiterate "Vission" displayed clearly on the label (see photo), even though their website in one place calls this "Dubbel Vision," with one "S" as you'd expect, but with two S's in another. With ABV it's 9.3 on the label but the website says 8.8. Who was it that said "Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds"?