Strong Brown Ale - Tasting

It has been just over 2 months since I brewed up my Strong Brown Ale.  It was intended to be a semi-clone of Lagunitas' Brown Shugga.  I haven't tried it next to the real thing yet but I strongly suspect that I was a bit off the mark with this one.  I ended up stopping the boil a little too early and had an extra half gallon of wort that I poured out after chilling.  That cost me about 6 points off the original gravity.  Then the yeast ended up taking the beer all the way down to 1.015 rather than stopping at 1.025 as I'd hoped.  I believe part of the strategy of using the WPL002 was that it would die off at around 10% ABV but since I started with less fermentables it was able to take the FG down further.  So, it's a bit dryer than the original which is a pretty big flaw since the sweetness was one of the primary characteristics I was shooting for with this beer.  Live and learn I guess.

I tried this beer a few weeks back and it had a pretty stiff alcohol bite too it.  It's still got quite a bit of alcohol in the finish but it is much smoother now.  I believe it will continue to improve over time.  I will plan on doing another tasting in November when the real thing hits the streets.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Alcohol/Fruity Ester character are the prominent smells.  The fruity flavor is of dried fruit - prunes maybe - it is quite nice.  There is also some malt sweetness in there.  No hop aroma to the beer at all (shouldn't be a surprise because I eliminated all the late hop additions).
• Appearance:
• Very slight head even after a fairly vigorous pour.  The head quickly fades to nothing.  It is a cloudy beer - the cloudiest beer I've made so far.  This is probably due to the wine yeast added at bottling.
• Flavor:
• Even with the lower than expected final gravity there is still quite a bit of sweetness to the beer.  There is quite a bit of dark fruity flavor that goes nicely with the sweetness it has.  I also think I'm tasting something like a brown sugar flavor but that may be my imagination.  The malt has a bit of subtle nutty flavor too it.  The finish is primarily alcohol.  The bittering hops are all lost in the background - can not pick them out past the alcohol.
• Mouth-feel:
• It has a pleasant amount of body too it - I don't think I'd want this to be much more carbonated.
• Overall:
• This beer still seems a bit green.  The alcohol flavor dominates at this point and it's a pretty harsh alcohol burn.  The fruity sweet flavor is pleasant - hopefully that element remains a few months down the line.  Some flavor/aroma hops probably could have improved the beer a bit at this stage of maturation.

I am thinking the beer may be better a few months from now.  The malt and yeast character are very pleasant.  I am hoping that the finish becomes more about them and less about the alcohol as it ages.