Thaddeus
Schilling Beer Co.

 

From a 1pt 9.4oz bottle, undated as best I can tell. Served in a tulip.

Pours a rich mahogany brown with olive highlights and a two finger blanket of foam insulation-like head. Retention is excellent, leaving a heavy cap and curtain of foamy lacing.

Aroma is sharp and boozy. Raspberries, burnt sugar, and a lemony, solvent sort of smell.

The solvent quality carries through into the taste at first, too, which is a little sad. Tasting licorice and fruit cake, citron, fig newtons, booze-soaked raisins, burnt sugar.

Feel is unexpectedly light bodied with fine, gentle carbonation. Thin and puckery finish.

Overall, I found this somewhat thin and unsatisfying. FWIW, belgian strong is an iffy style for me - some I’ve like a lot, others not so much. This would be one of the latter. YRMV.

 

 

Enjoyed at Portland beerfest

huge creamy fluffy head, big lacing, hazy brown

Nose sweet brown sugar molasses, fruit esters fig paste dates, mild sweet rye whisky

Taste sweet molasses candy malt, brown add candi sugar, fruity ester fig paste date etc, nice phenol notes, toasted brown Belgian malt, hint booze, mild rye whiskey

Mouth little booze chewy malt, light fluffy carb

Great!

Reviewed from notes. This was poured into a tulip. The appearance was a semi-dark amber close to brown sort of color with a finger’s worth of white foamy head that fell off at a moderate pace. Slight lace. The aroma had some rum, fruity sweet woodiness, light honey, some vanilla, freshly cut grass, some clove, light lemon and ended with some dark bread. The flavor was moderately sweet and dry with some of the rum and dark bread taking precedence. Super light on the spicy clove. The aftertaste was a somewhat rum, sweet wood and dark bread. Finish was mainly the rum and sweet wood. The palate was semi-dry with a touch of the woody sweet booziness coming along to apply just a touch of acceptable "heat" to play with the body which was about medium. Carbonation felt fine. ABV felt fine. Overall, pretty nice Belgian strong dark ale.

On tap at the brewery. (Belgian-style Dark Strong), 8.8% abv. A unique and very dark (33+ SRM) Belgian-style specialty ale featuring notes of rum, spice, dark fruit. Alcohol-warming is present. Let it warm in your hands to taste its full complexity. Thought I'd like this more but it was just okay.

 

 

Sample from the Granite State Brewers Festival 7/25/15
Rich bready caramel with light toffee and fruits. Hides the alcohol well, quite a flavorful beer.

On tap at the brewpub. Sampled on July 18, 2015.

The pour is reddish brown with a thin of-white head. Not completely opaque but still somewhat impenetrable.

There are ups and downs in the aroma. I loved the brown sugar, roasted dark sweetness, and feint fig but there was a kind of burnt malt presence too.

The body was smooth and in the medium to better than medium range.

The taste has a dark semi-sweet attitude with a slight charcoal burn but a bitter, earthy bite at the end. Quite a nice beer.

 

 

 

 

 

Great new beer