Graf Stolberg Dunkel
Brauerei Westheim GmbH

Dark chestnut color, medium beige head. The aroma of malt and caramel. Coffee notes in malty taste. Minimal roasted bitterness. Good German dark beer.

Pours dark with some light bleed at the edge. Near pitch black, but with a lagered aesthetic.

Nose is soft and subtle. Barley sugars, coffee, earthy hops. Roast malt.

Taste is initially herbal and spicy. Gives way quickly to weak coffee and milk chocolate. Earthy, but easy drinking.

Finish is long but delicate. The beer's visual really does add so much more to its overall enjoyment. It's middle of the road but easy to enjoy regardless. More in the vein of kostrizer than your average craft American take on the style which I appreciate it. But a bit more heft and a bolder hop character in the middle would work nicely.

500ml tall bottle. Poured out an opaque, dark, dark brown color with a small, off-white head of bubbly foam. It left sticky trails of lace on the glass. It smelled of roasted malt, coffee and some light chocolate aromas. Sweet chocolate, toffee and caramel taste with a mild bitterness.

 

 

 

 

This is an excellent dunkel, flavourful and well balanced. Brown, it has a fairly large off-white head steadily shrinking but lasting with some lace hints.

Aroma is nutty brown bread, full-bodied but fairly simple.

Flavour is more complex, a nice nutty brown bread with some woody-herbal hop, balanced bitterness and sweetness, slightly on the dry side but not too dry. Feel is fairly lively and engaging, not watery at all.

 

Poured from a brown 16.9 oz. bottle. Has a very dark brown color with a 1/2 inch head. Smell is of malts, dark bread. Taste is kind of mild, malts, a bit of breadiness, some earthy notes. Feels medium/light bodied in the mouth and overall isn't bad, but kind of disappointing for a German beer.

 

 

L: Poured from a bottle to a pilsner glass. Had a dark brown color and a thick texture. There was a two inch, tan-colored, fairly long-lasting, foamy head. Pretty good lacing.

S: An underwhelming aroma of roasted malt and a bready quality as well.

T: Tasted of a big amount of roasted malt, brown bread, and a touch of chocolate that seems to quickly go away. A fairly one-dimensional, undynamic flavor that's dominated by the malt. It doesn't give much a chance to the other ingredients.

F: A good amount of carbonation with a dry finish. Medium-bodied.

O: While this beer has some decent characteristics, it doesn't succeed in the flavor department.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A: Pours a clear dark reddish brown in color with moderate amounts of active visible carbonation rising from the bottom of the glass and some moderate to heavy amounts of amber highlights. The beer has a half finger tall foamy beige head that reduces to a medium to large sized patch of thin film and a medium thick ring at the edges of the glass. Minimal amounts of lacing are observed.

S: Moderate aromas of slightly sweet dark malts, slightly reminiscent of brown bread.

T: Upfront there are moderate flavors of slightly bready dark malts with a light amount of caramel sweetness. Hints of spicy hops in the finish that lend a light amount of bitterness which fades pretty quickly.

M: Light bodied with light to moderate amounts of carbonation. Slightly thin.

O: Pretty easy to drink but it just seems slightly too weak in the taste/smell. Alcohol is well hidden, making it sessionable but not really interesting enough for me to want more than one of.