Brewhouse Rarities: Maibock
Flying Dog Brewery

 

12 ounce bottle into lager glass, best before 9/11/2015. Pours crystal clear orange/copper color with a 1-2 finger dense and rocky light khaki head with great retention, that reduces to a nice cap that lasts. Nice dense soapy lacing clings down the glass, with a good amount of streaming carbonation retaining the cap. Awesome appearance. Aromas of caramel, brown sugar, toffee, brown bread, toasted biscuit, light nuttiness, herbal, floral, light pepper, and yeast/toasted earthiness. Nice aromas with good balance and complexity of dark/bready malt and light-moderate earthy hop notes; with good strength. Taste of caramel, brown sugar, toffee, brown bread, toasted biscuit, light nuttiness, herbal, floral, light pepper, and yeast/toasted earthiness. Light herbal/spicy bitterness on the finish; with lingering notes of caramel, brown sugar, toffee, brown bread, toasted biscuit, light nuttiness, herbal, floral, and yeast/toasted earthiness on the finish for a good bit. Nice complexity, robustness, and balance of dark/bready malt and light-moderate earthy hop flavors; with a good malt/bitterness balance and zero cloying sweetness after the finish. Very clean on lager flavors with minimal yeast notes present. Medium carbonation and body; with a very smooth, moderately creamy/grainy, and slightly sticky mouthfeel that is good. Alcohol is very well hidden with minimal warming present after the finish. Overall this is a good maibock. All around good complexity, robustness, and balance of dark/bready malt and light-moderate earthy hop flavors; very smooth and easy to drink. This felt a closer to a traditional bock with the strong caramel/melanoidin flavors and lighter hop presence; but was still nicely enjoyable.

I wish flying dog would never stop making this beer. It's just so good. Definitely in my top 5 of all time. A purely non-pretentious summer beer. No lemon peel and coriander and grapefruit and shandy crap.

If this beer were a human his name would be Richard Mahogany (Rich for short). A perfect mix of reds and browns and coppers and oranges. Smells like baked dark bread with a hint of sulfur. Taste is definitely malt dominant, maybe even a touch sweet for some. But those people's opinions don't matter. So don't worry about that. The only indication of hops is the florals you can sense. The feel is a little thin, which is a bad thing for January but a good thing for July or for sassy people. Not sure I would call it a short coming. It just is what it is. Toss in a shot of bourbon and keep it moving.

 

 

Enjoyed from the 12 oz bottle in a snifter. This maibock pours a nice golden orange with a moderate head of white foam that subsides to a thick ring and pooling layer with spotty lacing. Nose of sweet malts, a touch of fruit, and subtle herbal notes. Flavors exceed the nose with sweet caramel notes on the front fading to a light pear and apple note in the middle and finishing with a light herbal hops note. Mouth feel is lightly carbonated and subtly creamy with a light sweetness and herbal crisp hop flavor on the aftertaste. Very solid for being a hybrid of the style since it is not a lager and is an ale which would account for the mouth feel lacking the crisp qualities. Overall highly quaffable and enjoyable.

Cheers

 

 

Darker than gold, borderline amber in color. Aroma is great. Lots of rich caramelized malts and a touch of noble hops. Taste follows the nose, with a little alcohol warmth and a touch of bitterness on the finish. Not a world beater, but it's definitely a nice flavorful malt forward beer that is suitable for times that the palate needs a rest from extremely hoppy beers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poured from the bottle into a pokal style pilsner glass.

Off tan colored head and very creamy, almost a vanilla like white and standing a solid two fingers. Body color is a real nice light chestnut, with some lemon hues to it also, quite clear, and with a nice glow. Very impressive body color, but with little carbonation at all.

Aroma hints more to faint sticky yeast, a little bit of muted fruit but not much else. Very little toasty malt presence, crispness, density, or character. Inoffensive but really not much going on for this bouquet unfortunately.

Palate doesn't quite seem to get there. Light bodied for sure, but almost too much. Watery palate that seems to also contain a faint hint of seltzer and mineral carbonation. Tastes also feel not just muted but also even dumbed down, weak caramel, weak toffee, weak crispness almost like flattened uncarbonated soda. The flavors are actually quite pleasant though, but just don't carry forward in the mouth.

Overall needs a little bit of work to make the flavors gel and more pronounced even for this lighter style. The high abv seems like an afterthought at least and hardly noticeable I'll give it that.