Highland Cold Mountain Winter Ale

Brewed by Highland Brewing Company
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Asheville, North Carolina USA

Off the tap at nick and nates. Poured dark amber with a nice head. A very festive beer. tasted like a cinnamon bun. Very nice aroma, great beer.

Bottle. Shared by a generous Ratebeerian at the PP Strong Ale Fest 07. Rich, rose colored shade of copper with an ivory head. Bourbon, spices and cigar aromas blend with sweet malts. Rather thin mouth feel with tons of vanilla. Malty sweet with cinnamon and spice notes.

Another knockout from my Secret Santa. This is one awesome beer. Aroma of giner, chocolate and nutmeg. Pour was a flat brown with no head. Taste was extremely complex. Started out tasting like a chocolate milk shake. After a few sips strong cinnamon and nutmeg come out. The finish is very spicy and tingly. The cinnamon and nutmeg flavors grow as the beer warms. Could use more carbonation but the creamy mouthfeel was good too.

Pours a reddish brown with a tan head. Has hints of caramel, spices, nuts, vanilla, and some dark fruit. Finishes light and clean on the palate.

Bomber. A strange deep, dark, but also shiny and clear red color with a real big soapy tan head. Odd looking, but kind cool. Smells as sweet as candy with syrup on top. Really unique flavor...I get some honey, caramel, raisins, grapes, vanilla, coffee.... Quite complicated, really strange, but somehow still good and balanced. It surprisingly doesn’t leave my mouth sticky and finishes much cleaner than I expected. Tastes sorta like a sweeter version of a low alcohol barleywine...if such a thing existed. One of a kind for sure.

Got this big ’ol bottle from Jimbowood sometime last year, I believe. Ever been inside the tinderbox? It’s a cigar shop that is found in malls throughout the country. Well, this stuff smells just like the inside of a tinderbox. Vanilla, malt and tobacco are on the nose, and the flavor tastes like a sweet vanilla cigar. Weird, but pretty good. I guess it’s fitting that a beer from North Carolina tastes like tobacco.

Pours out a deep drark red with a a huge tan head. Aroma is sweet as can be with caramel and spice. Taste is interesting, heavy on the vanilla and cinnamon as well as nutmeg. Good lord this is sweet and spicy!!! I have to say up front that I’m not a big fan of hugely sweet beers. For this reason, I can’t rate this beer very high, however I must say that this beer would be much better if I had split the bottle with two or three people instead of trying to drink it myself. Too much sweetness is sometimes not a very good thing.

PP Strong Ale Fest 07, bottle brought by kp, thanks dude. Pour red with thin tan head. Nose is sweet. Taste is sweet, with a sugary cereal taste. Weird but interesting.