Ladies and Gentlemen, it's time for your first of 3 installments of Winter Warmer Wednesday! Each year I've made it a point to reserve a Wednesday blog review for a Winter themed beer. Sometimes they're the winter warmer style, sometimes they're just Christmas beers. Tonight, it's the latter.
Each installment in the last 3 years has either been a hit or a miss. Lancaster Brewing's Winter Warmer Ale was probably my most memorable and enjoyable. Unfortunately I haven't seen it since.
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| If you see this, let me know! |
From Abita Brewing Company in Louisiana we have their Christmas Ale. According to label and other information I've found, they change the recipe each year for this seasonal beer. Not sure what to expect here, so let's get down to business!
The pour was a cross between a caramel and mahogany color with a decently thick tannish head. I, for no good reason, decided to put this in my Troegs splinter glass. Definitely not proper glassware for the style, but I'm sure it doesn't make much of a difference!
The aroma was a burnt malty caramel, which was actually pleasant and not off-putting. There were also some citrus and pine notes from what I assume were the aroma hops. This beer was definitely more hoppy than it was sweet and malty. Don't get me wrong, there was a sweet malty caramel on the front side of the taste, but it followed up pretty quickly with a bitter pine and spruce on the back side of the beer.
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| If you like hoppy beers that is... |
I guess they were thinking about drinking a Christmas tree or something along those lines here, because the aroma didn't really match up with the taste of this beer. All things considered, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't really good either. With most Christmas holiday seasonal beers having some spices mixed with some level of sweet malt, this particular brew didn't stay true to style. However, if they were going for drinking a Christmas tree with sweet sap and pine needles, it was spot on!
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| Now that's more like it! |
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| 3 out of 5 for this hopped up Christmas beer tonight! |
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