LaConner Tannenbaum Ale

Brewed by LaConner Brewing Company
Style: English Strong Ale
LaConner, Washington USA

A great winter warmer. Dark borwn color with a slight hoppy hint this was a nice beer to drink. Great dark malts, hops and aroma from the start to the finish. A strong percentage beer that was a great winter style brew.

From the bottle.

Pours dark with red hlighlighgts and a modest head. The aroma packs a serious punch of of big spruce hops and blast of well-roasted malt. The flavor is strong and sharp, with the too-common threefold aggression (hops, dark malts, alcohol) of the less impressive PacNW winter ales. No balance here, but rather a set of overly-strong flavors competing with one another and leaving the palate battlegroung as scorched-earth. Bitterness and aggressive malt and sticky-sweet oils all clash with one another.

This one features the worst characteristics of the LaConner brews (particularly, those medicinal hops) with little of the good.

Bottle. Poured a murky brown color, with a few floaters and a thin off white head. An aroma of oak and vanilla with hints of alcohol hits my nose. On the first sip the alcohol is a bit alarming but as I drink more the hints of vanilla, oak, and sugary molasses comes through. It is in fact a bit rummy as the description says.

Out of the bottle this brew pours a dark glowing red with the faintest off-white head. Very sweet alcohol accented aroma, brown sugar and some subtle earthy spicing. Taste starts with a hint of chocolate up front followed by some earthy malts in the middle, and finishing with some light spice, a hint of alcohol and some bigger bitterness to ease all that malt.

Draught, at the brewpub

Slight haze. Reddish-brown colour. Rather butterscotchy aroma with a little bit of malt. Palate is rich and malty, with butterscotch (much less than in the aroma, thankfully), earth, a hint of pine, and plenty of toffee. Chewily sweet finish. Alcohol lingers late on the palate. Despite the problematic aroma, this is actually quite a good ESA.

bottled. copper brown colour. decent pine and orange rind aroma, quite full, slightly woody, vanilla character. some raisins and port but thankfully not ridiculously sticky, just could use more bitterness. pretty festive anyway

Thick syrupy aroma with spice notes. Red brown liquid with a wisp of foam. Flavour is hops, light alcohol and malt. Very nice. Like a lighter Barley Wine, light on spice but very drinkable.

Bottle- Not for the weak of heart. Forgot one opened bottle and next morning the taste was very dampened (like the Chrismas Tree on Boxing Day morning) --- but the hops were completely uneffected (undrinkable but interesting)<g>