Fish Tale Winterfish Ale

Brewed by Fish Brewing Company/Leavenworth Beers
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Olympia, Washington USA

Had this bottled in Hawaii. Poured a clear, medium amber with a small, frothy, off-white, lasting head. The aroma was heavy with hops; chamomile, herbs and pungent resin/pine with notes of toasted grain and coriander. The flavor was initially lightly sweet with a moderately bitter, average-length finish. There was a neat smokey/campfire retronasal aroma here, too. The body was light-to-medium with a creamy texture, soft carbonation and a moderately alcoholic feel that pops up at the end.

This is really an amplified IPA to make a big beer in respect to Sierra Nevada’s Celebration Ale. So the golden hoppy winter seasonal is not dark for that reason. This beer is a cult beer among locals in Washington state, as it is really a strong IPA available in bottles at the supermarket about 4 months out of the year. It tends toward more crisp citrus hoppiness when young, but set some bottles aside for upto a 9 months or a year and it matures to a delightful slightly sherry toffee malty sweetness with very smooth hop notes which are well worth the wait.

(Bottle) Pours a clear orange body with a moderate off-white head. Aroma of pine, tabacco, and pepper. Flavor of charred malt and pine.

Glowing orangish gold color with a slight smear to it. Thin, off-white cap. Finely placed, closely scattered, spotty sheets of lacing sticks across the glass. Toasty with a big orange oil aroma starts from the pour. Very pungent, rich, oily, and deep with a well-rounded citrusy realm with notes to cannibus, the sister of hops, and some doughy fresh malts. Taste is well oiled in citrusy hops, oily, flavor heavy with oranges, a flint of lime, lemon and tangerine, yet calmly bitter with rinds and resins, somewhat smokey with herbal nuances. Quite a nice taster. Nice malt backing thats lightly toasty and bready/doughy. The bitterness closing in the finish is delicate and nurtured to perfection with a nice amount of citrus rinds, oils, and smokeyness. Smooth and oily textured feel from front to back. Quite silky for an IPA, even its bite tends to be smoothed out in oils and resins. Body is moderate in mediumness with a rich, soothing, quaffable, drenchable, lower carbonation that is utterly beyond average in drinkability. Damn good stuff. Winterfish would be one to bring to the frozen lakes while fishing through the ice if it were here in MN.

Bottle courtesy of Ughsmash. Pours oily fiery orange, looks like Grand Marnier. Aroma and flavor full of sweet/spicy oranges. Some sweet malt background with slight alcohol warmness in the finish. Decent overall, just a little rough around the edges.

Pours to a huge white head with beautiful lacing atop a hazy golden orange color. The aroma is malty and oranges. The flavor is malty oranges and sweet bready malts. Honey. Pine smoked tangerines. The palate is lightly chalky. Bitter. Creamy and medium bodied.

Transparent and magnifying lucid orange in color with an oily ice layer for the head and a fuzzy, beige moss island in the center. One of a kind snappy hop aroma leads the sweet aromatic surge, also pulling from acidic Sunny D, lemon grass mixed with honeydew and a silent vanilla crème element. Flavor is righteously bitter. Sharp citric elements denote a cunning character laden with freshly mowed soccerfields and experimental lemon herbed sourdough. Like an orange dream soda gone berserk with bitterness. Begs the palate for more of this sweet hops medicine, constantly eliciting thirst and prickling with bitter resonance. First and foremost a bitter regime, but honeyed sweetness provides proficient backing while orange citric kisses lightly tickle the alpha acid ego. Finish is defined by cottonmouth, raped of a layer that it didn’t have to spare. A commendable rendition, especially in a season defined by spices.

Thought this was a winter seasonal, not a summer. Pours a hazy orangish gold color. Aromas of hops and malts with hints of smoke. The flavor is floral hoppy and some sweet malts.