Saxer JackFrost Winter Doppelbock
Saxer Brewing Company / Nor'Wester Beer Company

 

 

This beer pours a golden color with a slight red tint. It has a light tan head that fades quickly leaving very few laces. This beer smells very malty. It has a sweet caramel aroma to it. I can smell the toasted malts. It also smells very slightly of molasses. This beer has very little flavor. It tastes slightly malts and sweet. I taste no hops at all, and very little spice or any other flavor. It leaves a very light caramel aftertaste. It is carbonated well. It is crisp and goes down smooth. This beer might make a decent session beer because you can not really taste it. This beer is not all that good. Not bad, but just not good either. I will probably never try this one again. Dont waste your time or money.

Pours a great, clear, Crayola brown with maybe a hint of red. A fair to middlin' head hung around for a little while before leaving. The essence of molasses and burnt sugar is in the smell and gives the impression that this will be a malty beer. The lingering aroma of cotton candy is also there. So, it seems like a processed sugar smelling beer.

The feel in your mouth is smooth and malty. Some cloves hide beneath it as well as that molasses/caramel flavor.

A pretty good beer but it didn't make me yearn to sit around the fire roasting chestnuts.

One of my last brews from a Christmas present winter beers collection- I only have a couple left, and the weather is a warming up in a hurry. As a note for future reference, I am reviewing this with some allergy symptoms, so things don't smell or taste as strongly as they otherwise would. But I think good enough to review, worthy of a re-review later.

Pours a transparent, dark copper amber with NO head in a pint glass. Didn't expect a lot, but was surprised at how much it wasn't there.

Aromas are faint (duh!), but malty, roasty, a bit caramel.

Flavor is sharper and more bitter than expected- something real is happening here. The bock malts are definitely the main player, but hey, there's more here than what's on the surface. Definite sweetness. It's probably from the alcohol profile, which is nicely balanced into the mix- not at all over the top. I was actually surprised by an 8% ABV on this one. Not gettin much in terms of winter spices.

Overall, decent, from someone who really isn't in to winter beers in general.

Label: SAXER - Jack Frost Winter Doppelbock "micro brewed malt liquor. Made in 30 barrel batches. 8% ABV" touting a mountain man brandishing a rifle on a steed. (Mountain men love mountain women...arf arf!)

Pours a cloudy mahogany with a settling tan uneven cap.

Powerful aromatic root beer grainy scent. Slightly woody with a touch of dark fruit and table sugar.

First swigs: Toffee & root beer malts dominate the palate. Sweet flavors brought on by molasses and hard candy. Hidden 8% ABV with a touch of roasted malt middle.

Feel is medium body. Crisp snappy carbonation with cloying tacky buttery possible diacetyl finish.

Last swigs: Average bock 8% ABV is big. $1.75 at Circle Liquors Ewing NJ. Grab a Janes Addiction album because this is Nothings Shocking.

Beer is good. Happy bock beering.

12 ouncer sampled, no freshness dating to be had. Pours plummy almond and clear, low carbonation, no lacing, no nose that I could pick up. Medium bodied, fairly flavorful brew. Winter spicing, fruity, plums, dark berries and moderate sweetness. Warming. Suprised by the low marks for this decent, IMHO, brew. tasty and well fortified @ 8% , I found this to be a tasty and drinkable concoction. At least worth a try.

12/19/04- Part of a 10 pack of winter brews purchased at Cost Plus in San Mateo, CA.

Presentation- 12 oz bottle with a smeared code imprinted on the bottom of the bottle. Poured into one of my Weizen glasses.

Appearance- The narrowest of head retention here. A browninsh pour with zippo lacing. One of the poorest looking beer I have seen.

Smell- Odd, but it smelled like sardines to me. It had this fishy smell to it. I couldn't get past that to smell anything else.

Taste- Thankfully it didn't taste like sardines. Wasn't horrid, but nothing remotely special. Kinda watery and suyrupy at the same time. A bit of rasins and other spicy stuff going on, but nothing worthy of drinking.

Mouthfeel- Watery and a bit thin. Low to midrange carbonation.

Drinkability- Not very...case closed.

Appearance - pours a slightly cloudy amber and forms a full finger of creamy, tan head. Some sticky lacing residue as the head slowly fades to a covering.

Aroma - malts and some raisiny sweetness, trace amounts of coffee or chocolate, it's kind of hard to pick up. On the lighter side, for a doppelbock I would think there would be more here.

Taste - sweet, raisiny, predictable. It's easy to tell that if it wasn't as sweet, the alcohol would show through much more. As it is, while it's not boozy per se, you can just tell it's got some kick. Finishes kind of dry, but not really any hop presence to speak of. Some warmth at the end. Not very developed, but not bad.

Mouthfeel - thin, but with some solidness despite, giving it some syrupiness you might expect from a doppelbock.

Drinkability - it's a little shallow for the style, but it's on track. Still, if you're gonna pop an 8%-er, you tend to expect more.

Saxer Jackfrost: A typical double bock, not untasty, but fairly average. Light brown color, very clear when held up to the light. Not much head, but what it has had was light tan, and a little sticky. The aroma is again typical of a double bock, raisony, a slight bite of alcohol. The taste is nice, very malty, some dried fruits, with a long lasting caramel aftertaste. Nice but average. Very nice warming after blast of alcohol.

This poured kinda flat but I really liked the aroma that came off the, fairly small, head. There was a nice sweet malt aroma. The taste comes out a little to malty but finishes a little drier than the start. A nutty taste is the final taste, but it seems a little stale. I would not say that this is at all a bad beer, it is also not a great one. This is a fairly average beer. I am a little concered that it doesn't seem to taste like other dopplebocks that I have had.

Pours a clear amber with a generous tan head that settles into nice lace on the glass.

There is a citrus aroma in the nose with mild spice notes.

This beer is lightly malted with hints of fruit and spice. In many ways, this reminds me of a Belgian ale. I would give it a higer rating, but I don't believe this is indicative of the style.

There is a medium bodied feel to this beer that is accented by a crisp dry finish.

With a well concealed alcohol content, this beer does not let you know how strong it is. You could drink alot of these, but at great peril to your sobriety. A pleasant drinking experience that I would try again.

A reddish-amber color. A good color for a dopplebock. Pours with a good amount of foam and leaves some lace. Not much in the aroma. The mouthfeel seems a bit thin at first. Not as complex as I'd like to be, with fairly straightforward malt flavors. The finish is perhaps where the most character in this beer emerges, with some rum-like flavors, and a bit of dryness. Much too attenuated for the style.

Clear light amber-copper color with a nice foamy lasting white head with some lacing. Has a sweet fruity and nutty aroma. Sweet and malty roasty caramel flavors very sweet in the finish, medium body with a slick and smooth mouthfeel, alcohol well hidden, very drinkable for being 8%.

Cokes review of Jackfrost immediately preceeding this one must not have been the same beer I experienced. This tasting is from last year's batch and sat in the beerator for about a year. Wish I had reviewed a year ago for comparison or had access to this year's batch.

The reddish amber double bock had a thin head, but lots of malt in the nose. The rich mouthfeel came with toastiness and caramel with hints of banana and prunes. There also was over-ripe baked fruit in the finish.

Auburn hued, inching towards orange. Beige cream sits on top. And, for a moment, it stays there. It doesn't look ugly; it looks false. And it is

The nose is void and vacant of almost any distiguishing feature, aside from a tinny metallic quality and traces of caramel malt.

Enters the mouth...or does it? It is difficult to tell since it leaves no impression whatsoever. Hollow toffee traits, mixed with phantoms of pears. Lightly toasty too. But I'm really digging to find things to say. Lightly Germanic hop closure. Turns more tea-like at room temp. Not even boozy.

I'm giving this too many words.
There is literally nothing, NOTHING, here.

Features a consistency of heavily watered-down syrup. It salvages itself slightly in sheer mindless drinkability. If this was a Munich Dunkel lager, I'd still have the same complaints.

How can an 8% doppelbock seem dilute? How can it be so absent of malt? And so flavorless?

How can it suck so fucking bad?

This makes Leinie's Big Butt Doppelbock look like Korbinian, or Optimator, or Celebrator.
Or all three rolled into one, then multiplied by Autumnal Fire.

Save your money. I beg you.

Boo.
Hiss.

I've never been so angry about a beer in my life.
I hate you, JackFrost.

What a farce, this is.
What a joke.

Pours a clear copper with a thin white head. Fairly light aroma consists of sweet malt, dark fruit and alcohol. Mouthfeel is thin. Malt and raisin dominate the palate. Some biscuity flavor is detected towards the back as the beer warms a little. Not sure what classifies this as a "winter" beer, other than the higher alcohol level. Overall I thought this was a pretty bland tasting doppelbock and comes up short as a winter seasonal.

I really enjoyed this nice example of a doppelbock, although it kind of reminds me of a scottish ale. This beer pours a nice rubyish brown hue with a whitish tan head. Nice smooth malty profile with hints of biscuits and caramel. A real surprise to see this stuff at my grocery store nice smooth brew with an 8.0 kick.

Ok my wonderful trip into the Winter beers continues with this offering from a brewery that has both pleased me and let me down in the past.
Comes in a 12 oz brown long neck..mountain man atop a horse on the label.
This is actually quite a good looking beer.. a clear garnet red almost chesnut brown small off white head that leaves some nice lace.
The aroma is pretty pleasant chocolat malts..with a slight wiff of the alcohol..at first the aroma was bad..but it improved after about 10 minutes .
As expected with a dopple its very malty..but its too "thin" really the alcohol shows through in a "winey" way..heats the throat and chest afterwards.
too thin for my likeing on the palate..too carbonated.
For all its faults its definatlly a "winter warmer'...nice one.

This very rich, ruby-red coloured doppel bock, poured with a nice tan head. The aromas were all malt with no hops to be found. The taste was sweet, rich, syrupy, and very malty. The drinkability was excellent and the mouthfeel was rich and full...

NICE!