AleSmith – The Barley Whine

ALESMITH YULESMITH WINTER HOLIDAY ALE REVIEW

Happy holidays beer fans! For this beer review, we take a look at an unusual take on a winter seasonal, AleSmith YuleSmith Winter Holiday Ale.

WHAT IS A WINTER ALE?

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s the sun takes half days and the wind turns from refreshing to painful, man’s tastes change. Warm, thick, comfort foods like stews and chowders, mulled ciders, and roasts reappear in our kitchens as we gather indoors with friends. Brewers have always followed the seasons, losing access to fresh hops, the cold months are historically celebrated with a malty, higher ABV style known as winter ale or winter warmers. The English brewed these sans hops at times, to be heated and spiced. Later Burton Ales, a stronger dark beer, became a consistent winter tradition from the early 1900’s through the 1950’s (thankfully, they are now making a return).

In the US, Anchor Brewing revived the style in the states with a boldly spiced, dark beer known as Christmas Ale, according to the OCB, “its name predating worries about religious overtones” in 1975. And so today beers like Great Lakes Christmas Ale are a part of many craft beer lover’s highlights of the brewing year. Described by dissenters as potpourri in a bottle, American Christmas ales are generally brown ales with an ABV over 5% and spiced with ingredients like cinnamon and ginger. West coast versions often have a noticeable hop element.

TASTING NOTES

My first taste of this beer came during a blind tasting of Christmas ales with the prestigious Tri-City Beer Club (est. 1996). Despite the inclusion of the hopped up 3 Floyds Alpha Klaus porter and Bell’s well hopped scotch styled Christmas Ale, everyone was struck by the contrast between AleSmith YuleSmith Winter and everything else sampled. Not everyone was pleased by the contrast, but that is another story…

Tasted later on its own, the beer pours a ruddy brown that cannot be seen through. The nose of tropical fruit hop and sweet malts comes wafting up well before any pretentious sniffs are taken. The taste starts with toffee from the malt and grapefruit. YuleSmith Winter is not as hoppy as that big nose hinted at, but the hops are certainly there, with a bit more pine, growing more prevalent as it warms. The finish is a sweet and a bit boozy.

CONCLUSION

Winter seasonal beers, like autumn’s “pumpkin ales”, can become an excuse to make bland ale covered up with a familiar spice blend. YuleSmith proves that a great beer can be brewed by breaking from the mold, and going boldly hoppy even in chilly months. Great imperial reds like AleSmith YuleSmith Winter Holiday Ale can, with the bold application of sweet malts, bridge the divide between hop lovers and hop haters. The balance is that good. So if you have a hop head on your Christmas list, do them a kindness and slip this one in their stocking. Just don’t pour it for someone expecting a Great Lakes Christmas Ale.

8.5/10

What Is The Best Coffee Beer?

Founders Double Oatmeal Chocolate Stout — FOUNDERS BREAKFAST STOUT

The Premise

Each winter brings back together old friends in North East Ohio for the Tri-City Beer Club’s Annual Christmas party. In its 15th year the TCBC is a small group of beer fans who gather to blind taste test beers in a category. Getting older, the group has turned in Nirvana for NPR, and Cherry Coke for coffee. To reflect the maturing tastes, for the first time we decided to take on a hugely popular craft beer style; coffee beers. So what is the best coffee beer? Round one of The Barley Whine’s research into this question puts some great beers up to the challenge.

Methodology

As always, we blind tasted brews of a similar style, rated between 1 and 10, with .5 as the only allowable decimal. The first beer was re-tasted at a random time to avoid position bias. Beers are ranked based on style, not their genetic closeness to Tim Tebow.

The Beers

Founders – Breakfast Stout: #1 . Smelling of coffee and sweet chocolate, pours a khaki strong head with good retention. The taste is cold pressed coffee complexly combined with semi-sweet chocolate. Finishes with a bitter chocolate, hoppy bite. The mouthfeel is thick but slick from the oatmeal, and well carbonated. A world class blending of flavors, brewed to perfection.
Southern Tier – Mokah #2. Huge roasted coffee and chocolate nose. Do the Tootsie Roll! Milk Dud candy dominates the flavors. Lots of great chocolate, followed by the coffee, with cloying sweetness. The body is thick, less smooth than the Founders brew probably due to less oatmeal. Almost no bitterness in the finish. The 11% ABV is buried. The non-coffee drinks all gave this top marks.
Tröegs – Java Head: #3 . A dark chestnut pour with bubbly tan head. Smell is surprising mix of malts, coffee, and hops. Some sweetness, coffee, and hops with biscuity malts. Lots of astringency from the oats and hops. Coffee is mostly in the finish. Body is creamy, smooth and thick.
Surly – Coffee Bender: #4. Burnt coffee nose. Sweet coffee taste, dark chocolate, espresso. Very tasty!
AleSmith – Speedway Stout: #5. Guess what? It’s black. Potent caramel/toffee nose. Taste is of a great imperial stout, with subtle java and chocolate, a bit of soy sauce.
Bell’s – Java Stout: #6 (tie). Day old coffee grounds and vegetable smell. Lots of nice roasted malts, milk chocolate and burnt coffee hit the palette. The mouthfeel is nice and think. True to a stout but better with coffee, this beer suffers against sweeter, less chocolaty beers.
Samuel Adams – Black and Brew: #6 (tie). Dark brown color. Caramel nose with subtle coffee. Taste has a creamy coffee element, with only very little malt or hops. Body is a bit thin, well carbonated. Drinkable, but just too one note and bland to stand out against others.
Midnight Sun – Arctic Rhino: #8. Coffee and caramel notes with some alkaline odors. Tasted of roasted malts, mild coffee and a bit astringent. The body is really thin, with decent carbonation. Not as strong a java flavor, and much less thick than the others.

Conclusion

With stouts and porters, roasted malts, coffee and chocolate are a natural combination to play out in dark beers. If you like coffee, the addition of it to a good stout can make for a more complex, satisfying, even phenomenal brew. Chocolate is a very popular addition to dark beers and for those that do not like coffee’s bitterness, chocolate and a bit of additional sweetness turns them around on the style. Some of the best stouts fall in the coffee beer category so even if you’re not a 6 cup a day Starbucks addict, give any one of these a try in place of your Guinness or Baileys and you will be joyously surprised.