Black Oak Nutcracker Cinnabomb

Cask at Volo Cafe. Tasted as part of ’Nutcracker Suite’ tasting night. Cinnamon aroma and flavour more prominent. In the flavour, the cinnamon is a bit overwhelming. Herbal aromas, chocolate, coffee. Tasty. This makes for an interesting addition to a tasting lineup, but on a later date, I had trouble finishing a whole cask pint. Cinnamon overload?

[853-20071124] Cask @ Volo (Toronto, ON; called "Cinnabomb"). Cinnamon sweet gingersnaps aroma. Black body with a small long-lasting foamy off-white head. Smoky wooden roasted malt flavour has a thin grainy background. Medium body, expecting thicker. Aroma and Flavour are quite different from each other, very interesting!

On cask at Volo
Appearance: Dark brown, medium creamy, lightly browned top. 4-
Nose : Pear , cinnamon , fresh green twigs , herbal and aromatic . Not your mainstream ale 7+
Flavor/Palate : Brown malts with plenty of cinnamon. Medium light bodied . Hints of dough. Gave it more alcohol to balance this brew and we have superb spiced ale . For now its “cinnabomb”.

Knowledge is not a series of self-consistent theories that converges toward an ideal view; it is rather an ever increasing ocean of mutually incompatible (and perhaps even incommensurable) alternatives, each single theory, each fairy tale, each myth that is part of the collection forcing the others into greater articulation and all of them contributing, via this process of competition, to the development of our consciousness. Black body with a good sized brown head. Aroma and first sip are heavily dominated by cinnamon. <P>The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. Or at least, so says George Bernard Shaw. Flavour eventually brings enough of the roasty malt out of the background to round out the cinnamon but it lacks the rich balance of the draft version, and the average palate is fairly disappointing after the creamy palate of this years unfiltered edition. <P>...he plays an ineffable game of his own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players, to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch dark room, with blank cards... with a dealer who won’t tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time. An interesting experiment but I think that what it gains in assertiveness it loses in balance. <P>My definitive Nutcracker rating is consistent and cozy in its home at http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/black-oak-nutcracker/10261/8067/

Cask sample (also at Volo as part of the Nutcracker Suite tasting). Similar colour to the other Nutcrackers, but noticeable for its lack of head...perhaps the extra particulate matter makes head generation and retention more difficult? Yummy, cinnamon aroma, with chocolate notes. Regular nutcracker flavour is more subdued, and replaced by cinnamon on steroids. Extremely smooth and soft in the mouth. Like Greg said, the smaller format really suits this drink.

Cask sample (5 oz.) at Volo. Deep brown colour with a very still body and no head. Aroma of a rich chocolate-cinnamon truffle... mmmm! Soft mouthfeel. Flavour has a strong cinnamon character, with the base beer sitting nicely behind, and a lingering finish of candy cinnamon hearts. The cinnamon might be a bit much for a full pint, but for the medium sized sample, it was just perfect.