Alaskan Winter Ale

Brewed by Alaskan Brewing Co
Style: Old Ale
Juneau, Alaska USA

Pours amber orange color with white head. Aroma is of spruce and sweet malts. Flavor is malts and spruce with some bitter hop finish.

Bottle from Ralphs, Palm Springs, CA; Nose of spices, pine, and some malt; orange with a small off-white head; flavor of spicy cinnamon, caramel malt, pine, and cream in the medium body.

Draught. Pours amber with spare fizzy off-white head, diminishing, spare lacing. Aroma is average malt (grain, cereal, roasted), average hops (grass, pine), average yeast (sweat, broth) with notes of apple, pear and cardboard. Average duration, moderate sweetness, heavy acidity and bitterness, salty, husky grains and roasted. Medium bodied, sticky texture, lively carbonation, metallic. This is unimpressive as a barley wine and not too impressive as a beer. It is hard to believe these are the people brewing Alaskan Smoked Porter.

2006 Bottle...Many thanks to Milla ..:)....and this beer is dedicated to my Bougie...so the aroma is pretty mild..i get a malty smell and a bit of caramel... and the smell that I couldn’t place at first is the spruce tips...color is a deep amber...the texture is silky and thick...I have never tasted spruce tips in a beer before...its pretty interesting like nibbling on a tree branch and washing it down with a beer...:)...Aroma=5...Appearance=4...Flavor=5. Bottle, enjoyed 6/2008.....A nutty pine aroma...light copper-amber body with a beige head...creamy on first sip--smooth...syrupy aromas and mouth feel...watered down tree sap (in a good way)...add some sugar, and poof Alaskan winter...a medicinal herbaceous quality to it...its good, I wish I had a bomber of it...Interesting, unique, and tasty...Rating reflects 2007 Bottling

12oz bottle-An aroma of malt, a liitle hops, and the smell of a pine tree on a light amber body with no head. Taste of malt, spruce, and a nice sweet malt. Nice tasting beer.

Bottle. Pours an amber color with a small white head. Rather toasty malt aroma with hints of honey. The honey actually comes out pretty strong in the flavor - the beer is quite sweet, masked out a little by the spruce tips and malts. Hints of vanilla and caramel as well. Mouthfeel is thin and lightly carbonated. This has no business claiming itself as a barleywine, but it’s interesting and a pretty drinkable beer on its own.

A too-sweet barleywine that didn’t seem finished I had much higher expectations for the Alaskan barleywine. Aromas of honey and pine. Not as sweet on the tongue, and short on the palate for a barleywine with a light finish. Shucks, I really wanted to like this.

From a 12oz Bottle. Pours an orangish amber color with a thin layer of white head. Lightly malty aroma with a breath of hops and a restrained dose of spruce tips that leaves me wanting more. Barley Wine? Light to medium bodied mouthfeel with a soft carbonation. A bit on the sweet side, with some doughy caramelly malts making up the background to an earthy, piney bite. I still want more of the spruce character, but its still a nice treat nonetheless.