Whenever I hear the word "doppelbock" I start thinking of those corny old commercials for Wrigley's Doublemint gum. Doublemint twins. Double Your Pleasure. Double Your Fun.

I don't know about you, but frankly, I think most beer drinkers would have a heck of a lot more pleasure and fun with a couple glasses of a big, malty doppelbock beer than they would grinding away at a stick of gum like a cow chewing her cud. Gum isn't fun. Beer IS. And if I were looking for a good doppelbock beer to help me doppel my pleasure and doppel my fun, I'd have a tough time finding a better doppelbock than Spaten's classic Optimator.

Before I pop open a bottle, let's chat for a moment about what it is that makes doppelbock such a standout citizen in the world of beer styles...

What I Want in a Doppelbock
Bold, sweet, and malty -- that's what I want to find in a good glass of doppelbock!

This is definitely not a style of beer for wimpy drinkers. It's big. It's strongly flavored. And it's a little bit of heaven on earth for a discerning palate.

The beers are usually made using a blend of pale 6-row malt and Munich or Vienna malts. The reddish brown colors come from slightly toasted Munich malt, not from high-kilned darker malts nor from very sweet stewed malts like crystal or caramel. This tends to impart a nutty character to the malt profile, and you certainly find that in Optimator, which most beer gurus regard as one of the definitive examples of the style -- a beer that shows the rest of the world's brewers how it is done.

doppelbocks are always malty and at least somewhat sweet -- they never taste like hops.

Optimator is is an all-malt beer brewed to a starting gravity of 18 degrees Plato and having an alcohol level of 7.2 percent by volume.

A good doppelbock is a luxurious beer that you take your time drinking. While it's often served cold, I prefer it to warm up just a little to about 48-50 degrees Fahrenheit. At that temperature I can best revel in the decadently rich malt flavor profile. Besides, a warmer beer lets me more easily spot flavor flaws, if there were any -- but there aren't. These beers undergo about 3 months of careful lagering, and the result is an extremely smooth, clean tasting beer that just tastes of nature's own freshness. Mmmmm....

A doppel Dose of Drinking Pleasure...
I like big glasses of doppelbock, but I think that really big, complex beers like this one deserve to have their aromatics concentrated more so than many other styles, so I think I'll use a glass that's shaped more like a large brandy snifter.

Appearance:
The beer pours with a thick, tawny, rocky head that hangs on and hangs on trailing a fine Belgian lace all the way down to the bottom of the glass.

The color is a luxuriant deep copper with flashes of ruby red highlights when held up to the light. The clarity is perfect and there is a fine trail of delicate bubbles marching their way to the surface like ants in a column on their way to a picnic.

Aroma:
Strongly malty with lots of rich caramel smells and an unmistakable edge of ripe apples.

Flavor:
A big initial malt surge, with a bit of complexity that tastes almost like a bit of burnt sugar, is quickly pushed out of the way by a huge earthy hop signature. A deep-seated lingering bitter hop aftertaste leaves a wonderfully satisfying feeling in my mouth long after I swallow the last drop. There's some fruitiness in the flavor, like a little bit of raisin and plum laced with dark molasses, but the impression is more subdued than I expected, given the apple scent that I picked up when I first smelled the brew.

As I let the beer warm a bit, the malt becomes increasingly pronounced with a lot of soft toffee flavors and al bit of a toasty edge that reminds me of a good freshly baked shortbread just as the edges start turning a touch too brown.

This is a huge beer, and hugely complex, yet it is surprisingly well balanced with perhaps a bare touch more hops than I really care for in my favorite doppelbocks. I wonder how this beer would taste in a side-by-side with Sierra Nevada's Bigfoot. Hmmm. Sounds like an interesting evening taste-off. I'll have to try it out sometime...

Verdict:
This is a wonderful beer, and it fully deserves its reputation for excellence. I find it as complex and robust as Salvator and Celebrator (two other outstanding examples of the style), and I find it smoother and suaver than some of my favorite U.S. barleywines. This is a great glass of beer for anyone who likes really bold, strong beers. If you favor light, pale lagers, you should probably stay away from it because it will overwhelm your tastebuds, but if you already know that you like beers like barleywines, India pale ales, and imperial stouts, then give this beer a try -- it's a winner!

About Spaten...
The Spaten Brewery is one of Munich's oldest and most well-known breweries. The brewery claims a brewing heritage that goes back to 1397 (over six centuries!) The brewery is known for its record of innovation and adherence to exacting quality standards. Spaten has seen its share of famous brewmasters at its helm, including Gabriel Sedlmayer II -- the brewer who developed the maerzen/oktoberfest/vienna style of beer (see my recent review of Spaten Ur-Oktoberfest).

Official info about Spaten and their products is on their web site: www.spatenusa.com



Recommended: Yes