The Barley Whine

Beer debates, more civil than sober

AleSmith YuleSmith Winter Holiday Ale

December 4, 2012 by Steve Leave a Comment

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?

AleSmith YuleSmith Winter

[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

AleSmith YuleSmith Winter Holiday Ale

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

Filed Under: Beer Reviews Tagged With: AleSmith, High ABV, Imperial red

Bell’s This One Goes To 11 Ale

October 7, 2012 by Steve Leave a Comment

Bell's This One Goes to 11When visiting San Diego earlier this year, a town known as perhaps America’s best beer city based on their invention and output of hugely hoppy IPAs, a surprise came to me. Visiting local bars, I always search for the common denominator between various establishments. Some places will all have the same video game in the corner, or share a dislike for jukeboxes. In Chicago, for decades you could go to almost any bar and find Old Style signage and tap handles. In California’s second largest city, Colorado based New Belgium’s flagship Fat Tire amber is the tie that binds. At local breweries, the hot style nearly everyone has begun brewing, sort of a bigger version of Tire’s amber, is ‘imperial red’ ale. Lagunitas Imperial Red, Port Brewing’s Shark Attack, Alesmith Yule Smith Winter, Green Flash’s Hop Head Red, Ballast Point Tongue Buckler, and certainly many more imperial reds have popped up in recent years in the land that invented west-coast and double IPAs. Bell’s This One Goes to 11 Ale is the newest imperial red ale to challenge the tastes of craft beer geeks.

But according to the BJCP, this isn’t a style at all. Beer Advocate calls these imperial red ales “American strong ales’. This umbrella term captures for them any high ABV brew that doesn’t qualify as a barleywine, for some reason or another. So why do so many brewers call their beers imperial reds? Well, for one, they are! These are highly hopped, high gravity, versions of red or amber ales. It seems a simple distinction, but things move slowly at BJCP. The Great American Beer Festival styles, which are far more dynamic and vast, do judge imperial red ale as a unique style, so that is good enough for me.

Bell's This One Goes to 11 Ale
Bell’s This One Goes to 11 Ale
TASTING NOTES

Bell’s celebration of its 11,000th batch, which they call an Imperial Red, pours a translucent ruddy orange with a solid, soapy head. The nose is hoppy, followed by a caramel sweetness, almost honey. The taste is a cipher of different floral and bitter hops, backed by roasted, biscuit-like malts typical of an amber. Bell’s tells us this beer is brewed with ‘massive kettle & dry-hop additions of Southern Hemisphere hop varieties such as Galaxy, Motueka, and Summer. The citrus & resinous pine notes of the Pacific Northwest hop family are also well represented, making their presence known through Simcoe, Citra, and the newly released Mosaic varietal, just to name a few’. This is certainly evident, blasting your taste buds with all sorts of flavors. The balance of malty sweetness detected in the nose comes through very nicely in the finish, reminding us this is a red ale. Not too bitter, and not overly sweet, this one goes beyond any imperial red I have tasted in terms of layered hop spiciness.

CONCLUSION

The bigger, the better, has been the American craft beer mantra for some time. American barleywines, double IPAs, American brown ales, and black IPAs all attempt to crank up body, booze, hop profile, and malts. With the imperial red casting its shadow on the scene as an established style, another style now cranks up these elements in an amber ale format to new levels of nummyness. Bell’s, always willing to take bold approaches to big styles in their commemorative releases, made another great big beer. It may not be easy for everyone to define, but Bell’s This one goes to 11 Ale tastes great under any definition. It is a limited release so look for this one right now.

9.0/10

Filed Under: Beer Reviews Tagged With: Bells, Imperial red

Prior Ideas

AIPA AleSmith American Pale Ale APA Avery Bells Black Ops Bourbon Barrel Aged Brandy Barrel Aged Brooklyn Brown Ale Cigar City Cleveland Beer Week Coffee Dark Horse DIPA Dogfish Head Double IPA Fat Head's Firestone Walker Founder's Great Lakes Brewing Company High ABV Hoppin' Frog Imperial red Imperial Stout IPA Kölsch Lagunitas Lambic - Fruit Milk Stout Pumpkin Ale Russian Imperial Stout Russian River Samuel Adams Sour Ale Southern Tier Stone Stout Surly The Bruery Three Floyds Troegs Wild Ale Willoughby Brewing

Fellow Beer Bloggers

  • Don't Drink Beer
  • Hop Bunnies
  • Zythophile

Copyright © 2021 · Parallax Pro Theme on Log in