December 22 - Ommegang Adoration

Definitely this guy today!

Now that school's out for a few days, it's time to hit the home stretch for the blog.

Back when I was a young buck, I started becoming accustomed to craft beer after being exposed to the Belgian category.  There was something that I really enjoyed about a Belgian.  I'm not really sure what that was now, however.  Since then, IPAs are my go to style, but we've been down that road before so I won't bore you with that story again.

Tonight, we have from Brewery Ommegang in Cooperstown, NY their dark winter ale, Adoration.  Coming in strong tonight at 10%, this beer is brewed with all sorts of spices.  For really no good reason, Ommegang isn't something I seek out to purchase.  A lot of my beer drinking friends really dig their stuff, but I pass it up quite frequently at my local bottle shop  According to my trusty Untappd app, I've only have 4 of their beers so far (2 of the Game of Thrones beers, Hop House, and Hennepin).  Nothing rated above a 4 for me.

After an impromptu trip to the same local bottle shop, this caught my eye for some reason.  So, I picked it up.

It poured into a splinter glass a very cloudy, caramel color with flying yeasties all over the place.  It retained a creamy beige head very well.  

The aroma was a sweet malt and Belgian yeast along with strong caramel notes and dark fruit.  It tasted super malty and boozy at first, but even still, masked the 10% pretty well.  It became a little more Belgian as it went, not a ton of spices came through as labeled.  Honestly, it seemed a tad over-carbonated. As it got closer to the 50 mark (which the label says to drink this at) there may have been some cherry and honey present here too.  Honestly, for me, this tasted very similar to Troegs Mad Elf, which compared to this, I prefer.

Nothing special here, and I'm sure a few of you reading would appreciate this Belgian Dark Strong Ale, but I just wasn't a huge fan.  I'd drink it again, but this doesn't make me want to see it out again, and doesn't really strengthen the case for me grabbing another Ommegang either, unfortunately.

3 wise men, 3 out of 5