Lancaster Winter Warmer

Brewed by Lancaster Brewing Co.
Style: Old Ale
Lancaster, Pennsylvania USA

Aroma is sweet, full of berries. Sweet flavour, brown sugar. caramel. Nice simple beer.

Walnut, roasted malt, and yeast aroma. Clear brown pour, medium vanishing head. Strangely sour and astringent roasted malt. Chocolate on the palate.

Dec. 2007 - Dark cherry colored pour with no head or lacing. Mild diacetyl aroma. The flavor...well, it was just way too buttery and diacetyl. Some brown sugar and caramel malts. I don’t know if the recipe changed in the past two years, but I’m not getting the spicing in the other reviews, some mild cinnamon, but that’s it. I just wasn’t a fan. Hard to finish.

Red body with some tan head. Hops and malts give kind of an odd flavor. The alcohol is present but it’s not a great blend. I will pass on this in the future.

Thanks to DIM for this extra Bottle poured into a tulip glass produced good fingers worth of tan head on top of a ruby red body. The head turns to a thin lace Aromas of cinnamon, malts and some dark fruits fill your nose This id a good winter warmer you get the alcohol bite and wonderful spices it was a great sipper true to the style Good medium mouthfeel great sipper, light carbonation. Great beer will seek after again

Bottle. Sweetish aroma of caramel and light roast, tobacco-angled herbal notes, and caramel-plummy notes that dream of reaching Adam, or even a Quad, but don’t quite make it. Nice, though. Chestnut pour, dark but still (barely) transparent, with a finely-bubbled light brown head. Crisp light body a bit metallic in the bg, with light prickling carbonation and a dry, lightly warming finish. Nice plummy notes, but the caramel has abated significantly, with the dregs of dried tobacco and a lightly herbal sheen. Lightly bitter and medially sweet. Touch of orange tang with cherries way, way in the back. Some brown sugar in the aftertaste. A tough one to evaluate - lots of complexity and flavor, but the thin body is somewhat flimsy and the overall impression is "watered-down" - as in, there was once a much better beer here, but someone had a bottle quota to fill.

Draft at Harrisburg. Pours a deep mahogany red with an off white head. Aroma of fruity esters and sugary malts. Flavor of dark fruit, berries, and rye balanced by a dry spicy bitterness. Finish is semi-dry and slightly astringent. Transitions are a not as smooth as I prefer, and could use some more residual sweetness. Alcohol is well hidden. I was surprised to see this classified as an Old Ale. Oh well.

THOUGHTS: Not bad, but just doesn’t seem like much of an old ale. Seems a little bockish. TECHNICAL: Bottle. Poured a clear, dark brownish orange with a small, fizzy, off-white head that fully diminished. ( You could hear the head snap crackle and pop as it went away) The aroma was moderate to heavy malt with some port wine, brown sugar and sour fruit. (It smelled a little like Samichlaus.) The initial flavor was lightly sweet and moderately acidic, while the finish was moderately sweet and acidic and sour with and average duration. The flavor was malty with brown sugar and maybe some spices. The medium body was oily and a little syrupy with fizzy carbonation and a lightly astringent and lightly alcoholic finish.