Dogfish Head "World Wide" Stout

Say what you will about Dogfish Head, their name is unique enough that I, and the search engine of your choice, will not be confused when you go searching for it. When you DO go searching for it, you'll find that (at least on my blog) that they seem to do very well when it comes to brewing beers. This bodes well for a good, solid stout.

The aroma is what I noticed right off the bat. This beer has a rich, oaky, sweet malt and heavy grain smell that wafts wildly and enticingly from yards away. The color is black, but I get some hints of red. What hints? Well, there's the red head, for a start. I'm not sure I've seen a red head like this one before this side of a great Irish girl I knew.

First sip is overpowering. Is it possible that this is managing to overpowering itself? It definitely has the punch of a beer that has been augmented with the addition of rum or aged in whiskey barrels or had Scotch added or something like that. I see no mention of it on the label, but I can tell you what I taste - and that is the addition of a heavier liquor than this beer should have.

Tip-in is sweet and caramel with the malt and the grains setting up the beer with a lingering carbonation tingle. The middle is barley and what tastes like berries and oak. It's not bad, but it just comes off as strange for some reason. It's like the bark of a cherry tree in a glass of ground barley. The finish puts a cap on the barley and has a slight bitterness underneath that sweet malt.

Bottom Line: I've certainly had worse, and this seems to be getting better as it gets a little less cold in it.

3.0/5