Alaskan Winter Ale

Poured a clear orange with a small white head. The head disappeared pertty quickly. Aroma is sweet toasty malts with a bit of earthy, grassy hops. Flavor is similar with some toffee sweetness. The spruce was so muted that I might not have noticed it if I hadn’t been looking for it. It seems like the flavor got lost in the sweetness. I like the flavor of pine and spruce needles, so I was hoping it would have a strong presence. This is not a bad beer, and I’m going to have no trouble finishing my six pack, but it’s not very interesting.

I like piny tastes in my beer, but this was more like chewing on the needles. Overall a decent beer that was ruined for me by the excess of spruce tips.

Medium amber, off-white head. Lots of malt, sweetness nicely balanced by the light hop kick and piney notes provided by the spruce.

A suitable warmer, though not as strong as you’d expect an olde to be, and I didn’t think the spruce showed up as strongly as some reviewers did, either, though I would’ve welcomed it. Not bad.

Peachy amber, lots of bubbles, small head. Aromas of toasted malt, earthy hops and spruce. Palate is creamy and smooth, with plenty of evergreen, spice, and caramel. It will be quite tasty on a cold winter night.

I found a six pack of this at a liquor store near my apartment - I’m guessing it’s last year’s batch, as this place had a limited craft beer selection, and did not exactly look like a place where many people shopped for decent beer (the vast selection of malt liquor tipped me off) - anyway, it’s been quite a while since I’ve had a beer with spruce in it, and so I have had time to forget that the aroma it imparts to beer reminds me very much of Swedish Fish - one whiff of this beer reminds me of this - thankfully, there are some notes of caramelized sugar and heavily toasted grains behind this to kind of wash this out the more I smell the beer - thankfully, the flavor has none of this character - there is nothing very old ale like about this beer - a very toasty character, some light syrupy qualities, pine needles - the spruce tips meld with the sweetness to created a pine sap kind of quality to the beer - fairly clean and quite drinkable, but kind of an unremarkable winter ale - now I have five more bottles to get through - thanks crappy corner liquor store!

12oz bottle from Lukas Liquor. Pours clear copper with white head. Aroma is toaste malt, caramel, and some spruce. Flavor is toasted malt, toffee, little hops, a bit of spruce. Almost has a lager type quality to it. Another wierd flavor in there I really cannot quite define. Not that good of an old ale.

Bottle. Pours mildly hazy amber, with a thin off-white head, passable to poor lacing. Nose is mild spice, malt, caramel, cake, cinnamon, ginger, cold cream? Palate is dry for an old ale, which I rather enjoyed. Moderate fruit and light spice along with caramelly maltiness throughout. Not a beer I would immediately think of as an Old Ale, but a pleasant enough Winter Seasonal I suppose.