Sierra Nevada/Dogfish Head’s Life & Limb
Yesterday morning I called all the Ma and Pa liquor stores that carry Craft Beer to find out if they were getting in Sierra Nevada/Dogfish Head’s Life & Limb and only a few were. The price was about 15 dollars a bottle, which made me cringe. So, I let my boss know I needed to be off on time (which is 4 PM) in order to get some of this beer that has been lighting up the twitter trends. 5:30 rolled around and I was walking out of the yard, bitter and angry of course and dreading having to drive out of the way to go spend 30 bucks on 2 beers… My anger set in more and I partook of one of my cardinal sins; I called BevMo to see if they got any in. They did! $9.99! I really was bummed that it was so much cheaper because I like my Ma and Pa’s, but screw them today! BevMo it was!
I ended up heading over to my buddy Scotty’s house after dropping 54 dollars on 4 bottles of Life & Limb and 1 bottle of Lost Abbey’s Avant Garde, and immediately threw two bottles of Life & Limb into the freezer and the Lost Abbey in the fridge and started watching WWII documentary’s on the History Channel. One hour of watching these seemed like 3 hours due to my impatience… It finally hit 8:30 and I jumped up to grab the bottles from the freezer. Poured 4 rounds from the two bottles and marveled at the bottle for the first time. The art work was very beautiful and was well done, I’m talking about the actual labels right now and not the beauty of the beer.
After 3 hours of being off work I’m getting anxious and can only think about putting my lips to the glass. But, I was learning patience… I stared at the dark chocolate body and it was a beauty. It poured nicely into the glass and I didn’t have to fight my impatient pouring to avoid a large head, there was almost no head at all, maybe a half an inch. I could hardly contain myself, but I handed the beers to the other guys before I even took a smell. Yet, when I did take the first whiff I was pleased. It smelled sweet, but not overly sweet, it smelled strong, but not overly strong, it smelled somewhat bready, but not overly bready, it just smelled… well… Great!
The time had finally come, I let everyone else take their first sip and watch their faces light up and then took my sip. The first thing I noticed is that the feel of it was almost like a great casked root beer! It wasn’t too thick and had an easy drinkability to it with light carbonation, yet it wasn’t too thin either. So far almost everything I’ve noticed about this brew is that it was one of the most balanced beers I’ve ever had. Then came the flavor.
THE FLAVOR. It was sweet and guess what… not too sweet! The heat of the high alcohol definitely balanced the sweetness out nicely, yet a few of my friends didn’t think it had much alcohol flavor for it’s 10.2 ABV, but possibly it’s because I’m a wuss! Flavors of maple syrup, vanilla and some sort of fruit filled my mouth like very few beers have. My friend’s girlfriend took a small sip and she LOVED it! She doesn’t like beer, let alone LOVE it.
Life & Limb was one of the best beers I’ve had in quite a while, possible one of the best. Everything in this beer balanced well, from the label to the flavor. I’m thinking this is what true collaboration tastes like.
