Brewery: Spaten-Franziskaner-Bräu

Name: Spaten Optimator Dopplebock

Style: German Dopplebock

Origin: Germany

Bottle: 12 oz

ABV: 7.6%

Appearance: A rather dirty looking opaque brown.

Pours: Usual minor attentiveness needed. The foam being no more than a partial covering that shifts like a time-lapse video of earth’s tectonic plates over the last 1,000,000 years

Smell: First I notice is an inspiration to make a bread pudding with plums and figs and glazed in maple syrup. Bits of fennel stud this dessert and the whole thing is soaked in cherry cordial.

Taste: Taste in this one is remarkably similar to what you smell. I’m getting all of the same things I get when I smell it. Enjoy with an Allemande or Sarabande for harpsichord and cello.

Mouthfeel: This is a thick, heavy, cloying beer. The bubbles and the cherry taste give it a little bit of sour liveliness but overall it has a rather lugubrious personality. If it were a person they would be a judge in a powdered wig with a scowly-jowly face whose cheeks shook with disappointment and disapproval.

Rating: 8.6 This is not a slam back, refreshing beer to enjoy with a bunch of friends. This one you savor slowly, pause before swallowing a bit and let it rest on your tongue a few seconds. Find a quiet corner in a quiet pub, and sip now and then whilst enjoying a good novel or a crossword puzzle. Give him some time and this judge will take off that wig, get around to admitting to a fault or similarity or two and you’ll realize he’s not such a bad guy, the whole stern expression is just an act he puts on for the bench. Just don’t expect him to go clubbing anytime soon.