Big Easy Imperial Mai Bock
Lakefront Brewery Inc. – Milwaukee, WI
7.7% abv
Bottle and Draft / Seasonal

I love maibocks, and like Mike, I look forward to them every year, to the point that we made some this year, and his is almost gone!  They have a nice, rich maltiness that seems to cut through the remaining monotony of winter and introduces spring to us. That said, before this tasting, I never realized how similar all Maibock are. None of us did. It was quite an eye opener. It was rather difficult to find enough for this tasting session and now I think I understand why. Brewers want to stand out from others, and since there is little variance between them, they have other things to focus on.

The Big Easy pours golden and a bit thick with a decent cream to white head that lingers and has a good lace. Aroma was big on malt as it should be with overtones of yeast and alcohol and little bit of hop spice. Flavor was intense sweet, malty, spicy yumminess that coated all of the way down. Some interpreted this as burning due to the higher alcohol content, but the smooth almost velvety feel of this beer for me made me want cajun food to cut through it. The finish was smooth and slightly lingering, but not too long.

I would rate this as an excellent example of a maibock, and I look forward to it every year.

Brittain’s Score: 8 of 10
Overall Average: 5.7 of 10

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011 at 10:38 am and is filed under Beer, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.