AleSmith Decadence 2006 (Dead by Dawn) Ale

I was a bit confused when AleSmith announced that they would be doing an annual release of the Decadence. For their 10 year anniversary, it made total sense: Decadence, get it? So how can this this beer be released for their 11th anniversary still have the Decadence nomenclature?

Regardless, this release is basically a re-working of the AleSmith Evil Dead -- a damn tasty beer in it's own right. Why improve on a beer that already kicks ass? Sorry, I don't have any firm answers to that question....

But what I am more confident about is that this is a nice enough beer. Yes, as advertised, this is a bigger, brawnier, "hefty-hefty-cinch-sack!" version of the Evil Dead Red. But thankfully, jacking a beer that was comfortable around the "8" mark on the volume dial up to a "9" or "10" hasn't adversely affected it's overall appeal. A decent enough big-ass Red Ale, true. But overall? I still prefer the "normal" (read: "boring") Evil Dead Red over this over-octane'ed (and over-priced) offering.

"Bigger, bolder, and even more evil", sez the painted on label. Well...., such a philosophy may work for Stone -- "We made a great IPA last year. Let's crank it up to "11" and see what happens!" -- but for this beer, I think AleSmith would have been better served to leave their draught-only Evil Dead Red offering well-enough alone....!

The self-proclaimed "Imperial Evil Dead Red Ale" is rather unwieldy, all told. And regardless of the fan-boy adulation that this beer has received on RateBeer, I don't think this is nearly so wonderful or magical, overall.

In other words, while I think this beer does not inherently suck..., I do think that I'd just as well rather have the standard Evil Dead Red in a bottle, vs. this obtuse and unpolished one-shot offering....
//TB