Intriguing rust-clouded beige-headed barleywine-styled winter brew (a.k.a Biere De Noel) enhanced by peculiar spiced nuttiness and well-hopped dried fruiting. Heavy caramel malting provides firm foundation for smoothed-out whiskey finish.
Originally brewed as a 'black lager,' this tends to be dryer, cleaner, and crisper than its antecedent while retaining damp tobacco leaf sweetness and hints of rye, rum, or caffeine. Increasing malt sweetness thickens medium-to-full-bodied finish.
27th anniversary winter ale has a hazelnut-chestnut-walnut essence, seasonal pine luminescence, and pronounced mint-y clove follow-through. Its busy spiciness, rich creaminess, and sugary caramel malting anchor strong medicinal finish.
Nearly bock-like with its dusky prune intimacy, chewy toffee-caramel malting, and soft hop-spiced tingle. Gritty cereal-grained subtlety aids moderate cinnamon-toasted nuttiness, but herbal seasoning lacks.
Pride of the Chesapeake Bay, this spry citrus-scented winter treat cloaks sweet malt essence with dark fruity pungency and crisp hop supplement. But it's closer to briskly carbonated summer ale than spicier heartily robust holiday seasonal.
Well calibrated, boldly boozy, full-bodied winter seasonal not dissimilar to complex pale ales, yet not as distinctively detailed as Samuel Smith's Nut Brown or Oatmeal Stout. Sweet whiskey malts inform creamy vanilla-butterscotch frontage and cinnamon-nutmeg-spiced fruitiness contrasts slinky orange peel bittering. Sugar plum, stewed prune, and rum cake illusions relieve ancillary red cherry, pear, and marmalade snip to medicinal finish.
Serviceable clear garnet-ruby winter warmer less sweet than past seasonals, downplaying traditional cinnamon-nutmeg spicing for gingerbread-allspice-coriander conflux, raisin-currant backdrop, and molasses mellifluence. Smoked cedar and pine needles emerge mid-palate, whisked away by vegetative riptide, cigar ash dash, and cola nut hint.
Passable bottle-conditioned penny-hued Belgian holiday 'saison' counters tannic white grape tartness with dried prune-raisin confluence abruptly sweetened by brown sugar dalliance. But muted dry pulp finish loses luster after fourth sip.