Not sure when I drank this, maybe a week ago Sunday? I have a backlog of things to write about that's just getting worse at the moment. Going out every night this week isn't really going to help with that but oh well. Boulevard Nommo Dubbel is a dubbel, obviously, with some spices added to it. I picked it up in Houston when I was there in early November.
Unfortunately, right from the beginning, I was thinking this was a big miss by Boulevard. Some spice in the nose and also a really noticeable metallic note that is just completely off putting. The body was luckily missing the metallic portion of the nose but there were other issues. Sweet up front, slightly spicy, then super sharp biting alcohol in the finish that was remarkably unpleasant. Flavors didn't blend well either with the spiciness not meshing with the little sweetness that peaked through in the beginning.
Since I'm crazy, I powered through my bad feelings about it and drank the whole bottle. I'll admit it got a tiny bit better as I got used to the alcohol. The sweetness came up a bit and I felt like I got a view into what Boulevard was aiming for with this beer. However, it was really not very good and either Boulevard agrees with me or consumers do as they discontinued this one for 2013. Maybe they'll retool the recipe for 2014 or they'll just cancel it forever, but regardless I hope they do something.
That metallic note probably indicates something dramatically wrong with the beer, as opposed to being poorly conceived. I hate it when I detect a big off flavor like that, cause I never know if it's a one-off problem with the bottle I got or an actual indication of lax practices by the brewer... (and I feel your pain on the backlog of things to write about!)
ReplyDeleteYeah who knows. Jim, who you met last night, said on twitter he had it on draft and it was great. I think it's bottle inconsistency more than anything. I've had a couple other bottles from them that weren't super. Maybe it's a carbonation thing in the bottles as this was pretty highly carbonated and I find that can cause me to pick up weird flavors.
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