OK, Taco Mac got an extremely limited beer in, draft only actually, from Virginia’s Devil’s Backbone brewery. It sounded amazing, and I knew that the next time I popped in, I would be drinking it. And you know, I did just that. I ordered a glass of Sweet Virginia Dunkel and the rest is history. Here’s how the brewery describes it.

Brewed with sweet potato and molasses from our local Wegmans, this deep brown lager has a lot of caramel malt character with a touch of molasses in the finish.

Doesn’t that sound tasty? I’ll admit I found the notion of the brewery staff popping on down to Wegman’s and filling their shopping carts with sweet potatoes and jars of molasses amusing. But hey, why not? Anyway, the beer has an alcohol content of 5.1% by volume with 19 IBUs. It was expensive at $8 for an 11-ounce glass.

My glass of Devil’s Backbone Sweet Virginia Dunkel arrived da brownish black in color with a soft dark malty nose that subtly hints at molasses. The beer is smooth with very soft dark malty notes but I get no sweet potato and not much molasses either.

I’m reminded of Ian Malcolm, Jeff Goldblum’s character in Jurassic Park when he asks, “Are there any dinosaurs in this dinosaur exhibit?”. I’ll ask the same of why there are no sweet potatoes and so little molasses here. Although thbis would be a tasty dunkel, it is advertised with two feature ingredients that really don’t show up, and sold at a very high price. For that reason, I give the beer low marks, and would not buy it again. It’s not worth a try in my book for $8 a glass.

And remember, try a new beer today, and drink outside the box.

*Pricing data accurate at time of review or latest update. For reference only, based on actual price paid by reviewer.

(B)=Bottled

(D)=Draft