Scratch Beer 4 - 2007
Thank you Adam (akorsak) for hooking me up with this and other Scratches a few months back. This is one that I had been waiting on for a good cold day. 12oz bottled poured into mini goblet. Bottle Graphics: 9/10. Not many better than the Scratch series. A: Beatiful mahogany body with bubbles creating spherical orbs on the surface. Decent lacing. S: Sweetest of malts. Vibrant alcohol goes right through the nasal passage and into the brain. With all this, the hops still come through, even with the sugar, even with the time. I have come across several beers that I have thought smelled of dates, nothing quite to this level though. T: Chocolate and dried fruit. Super sweet like a potent barleywine should be. Intensity is awesome and over the top, love the details. Letting it warm smooths it out and had all the best characteristics of a chocolate sugar cookie. Like the taste, the taste of liquor soaked dates prepping for a quality fruitcake. Time I am sure did it a favor but did not destroy the hop flavors. Never before can I remember the taste of mango hops coming through in a barleywine until now. That, my friend, is cratfsmanship. Awesome. M: Medium to heavy body, the website sums it up well with "sweet burn". Marvelously smooth,creamy and delicate. D: Another fine edition of the Scratch series that the brothers really would do themselves a favor by at least making a seasonal. Yet to have a Scratch I did not like and all have been even better on tap so I could imagine what wonders this would be like in that form. Well done. Thanks Adam.