Update: Here is the roundup for this edition of the Session over at Brewvana and here is the complete history from Jay at BBB.

OK, maybe not the nation...and maybe not even my street. I didn't even had one in the stash but I had one better, Sled Dog Trippelbock Reserve from the Wagner Valley Brewing Co. of central New York. You know, I had one of the Sled Dog dopplebocks a few months ago and never even reviewed it. So there. Along with a six of St. Victorious dopplebock. It was dopplebock central around here but I never reviewed any of them. What can I say? I did review Salvator back in 2005 and Celebrator about a year ago. I've had S'muttonator. I liked them all.

This is a style that I like fine but one of the few which I have no imaginative connection with. I wonder why that is? I like hefeweizens just fine so it can be vestigial second-hand memory of the blitzing of the Clyde River shipyards borne of those years of now strange and terrifying bedtime stories, covers grasped tightly up to the bridge of the nose, during my elementary school years about about how every Scots relative of mine just escaped steely Nazi droppings from the burning skies filled with Heinkels and Junkers. No, it is simply my deep and abiding disinterest in lagers that is repeatedly proven wrong. Ignorance this banal can't be granted the distinction of being called prejudice.

What I do know and really like about dopplebocks is that wild cherry note, right in the middle amongst all the malt, neighbour of plum yet also cousin of almond. I used to have a patch of land with three different sorts of wild cherry - pin, black and one other - and it is that native fruit twang coaxed only from grain that I love about this style.

The colour of the style - and this example - deep mahogany with rich red notes certainly gives hope that the brewer was able to coax out the same notes. The beer pours true with a big tan head that resolves to a fine tan rim and thin float. And in the mouth that cherry bomb is all there. This 10% brew is a heady mix of milky treacle cherry almond graininess. There is even an effusively even slightly volatile moment in the mouth at the outset which is sort of like what you wished cherry Coke really tasted like.

Just lovely and the BAers give it the love, too. Please send all sighting reports to Jay at Brewvana and check out the updates. He is in charge this month.