Flying Dog‘s Double Dog Double Pale Ale is one of the Canis Major series of (extreme) beers that I received in the promo pack earlier this month. I’ve been seeing reviews of this beer pop up occasionally on the blogs and they’ve all been positive so I was eager to try this one out.

This truly is a "double" pale ale: 10.5% alcohol by volume! (The website says 11.5, but 10.5 is what’s on the bottle.) Not only have they doubled up on the malt bill, but on the hops as well; this is intended to be a big beer all around.

You’ll notice that the glassware I chose has the Stone Brewing logo on it… it’s Stone India Pale Ale, in fact, and it’s the only glass of this type that I have, so… No offense guys (Neal!), but it got a little cross-branded. Social networking or something, see.

Appearance: Pretty, coppery-amber color with a substantial, firm off-white head on top. Leaves lacing along the sides of the glass.

Smell: Reminds me of a barleywine in aroma, though hoppier. Spun sugar sweetness of big malt and big alcohol.

Taste: Holy smokes, big on the tongue too! This is screaming, "Barleywine!" every step of the way—"DPA" or no. (This is not a bad thing, by any means.) Malty-sweet and bold and sticky-rich. Lots of spicy hops here too, and the prickly warming notes of alcohol blooming on the tongue.

Mouthfeel: See that last line; warming, spicy, prickly. Full-bodied and almost syrupy and finishes nice and dry and lingering pleasantly.

Overall: Excellent beer, this is probably my favorite from Flying Dog. It’s really good. A barleywine by any other name…

On BeerAdvocate, it scores a well-deserved grade of A-. Likewise RateBeer, where it scores 3.83 out of 5 and is in their 97th percentile.