A recent buying splurge at Green's netted me three dark beers: Gale's Prize Old Ale, Lagunitas Imperial Stout, and Gulden Draak. As I am paying more attention to the ins and outs of beer tasting, I am noticing the traits and qualities that others describe when they taste beer in an official capacity. So now that I know just enough jargon to sound pretentious, let the name dropping begin.
Gale's Prize Old Ale: Using a modified snifter/chalice type of glass, the Old Ale pours dark brown with red/caramel colors tints. With no head and a syrupy glaze left on the glass when I swirled it; the Gale's felt more like a port or liquor than a beer at first. The scent is dark and fruity, smelling like beer and something older, like out of a documentary on medieval cuisine. The first taste is thick and sweet, almost cloying. I could taste lots of fruits- berries and a slight hint of darker fruits like prunes/figs/dates- something that would go in a homemade fruitcake. The sweet taste mellows out quickly into a fuller-bodied caramel flavor. Then the calvados hits you. Having had calvados before (thank you Drew's grandfather), I knew the flavor right off. Calvados is to cider like Veuve Cliquot is to sparkling wine. This beer was a bit too sweet to drink alone for me even with the crisp calvados finish, but I would have loved it with dessert or cheese.
Lagunitas Russian Imperial Stout: A friend of mine justified trying this beer by saying since Imperial Stouts were traditonally made for export to Russia, this kind of beer was likely sent to troops during WWI, and as he studies WWI, therefore we must try the beer. Poured in a tall pint glass and in a regular pint glass, the color is very very dark brown with a medium head in the tall pint and a minimal head in the normal pint. The Lagunitas smells a little hoppy, smoky, and of vanilla. The color and smell alone kind of make this a different kind of RIS, most of them are practially black in color and smell more sweet/chocolate/berry. While it tastes more hoppy than an usual RIS (most Lagunitas in general are pretty hoppy), the malts and full-bodied taste keeps it from being too bitter. The secondary tastes for me were vanilla and smoky chocolate. I did detect an aftertaste of coffee. Overall its not a favorite RIS, a little too hoppy and not dark enough, but its a really drinkable beer and the alcohol by volume won't put you on the floor.
Gulden Draak: A dark triple high volume Belgium. Poured into the chalice/snifter glass I have, this beer kind of does look golden. The head is thick and puffy, and the dark brown beer is shot with gold. Given that this one smells pretty alcoholic, I gave it a minute to breathe. After a minute, the Draak smells like herbs/spices and some earthy fruits. Its very flavorful- peppers, spices/herbs, earth, malt, apricot or grapes, caramel. Very carbonated, slightly sweet but crisp. Extremely full-bodied, this is one of my favorite darker triples. The aftertaste is carbonated and very slightly citrusy- the spicy hops balance the malts/caramel. This will put you on the floor, but its a nice ride down.
