McNeills Wassail Special Ale

Brewed by McNeills Brewery
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Brattleboro, Vermont USA

Poured a medium, hazy orange color with a small white head. Perfumy aroma with spices. Stronger peppermint tastes in addition to the spices. Thinner body.

22oz: Medium bottle-conditioned orange, leaving a dull fading off-white cover. Christmas fruit cake drowned in spices dominate the nose. Hard to pick up malts shine and annoy by their absence while an enumeration of spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves...) form a row that strikes the senses one after the other without much attention for cohesion. Faint crystallized cookie malt background. Flavorful, but hardly balanced, sweet and repetitive from sip to sip, the carbonation enhancing the beginning of a metallic feel and growing a sloppy character that loosens and waters down the already not very tight components. Lazy and unpolished.

A whirlpool of spicy quirkiness…Cinnamon candy, nutmeg and clove cake imagery…Melancholic fruit try to overcome the spice tornado and struggle to the very end, helped by some well-positioned biscuity malts…Romantic hop bitterness towards the end, a blessing, considering the fact that the aroma was promising an overdose of spiciness…A cheerful ale…

Hazy amber coppery colored, with aroima of caramel malt, some hops, a lot of Christmas spices. Medium to dense palate with caramel bready malt, hops, big spices, getting a bit spicier as it warmed.

Classic golden ale with a thin white head. Intense nutmeg and cloves in aroma. Light ale with light hops, with spices being less pronounced than expected. Medium bodied. Refreshing. Quaffable spices beer. Enjoyed at YEHa!05 Christmas Party on Dec. 17th, 2005.

12/14/01 Apple-juice color, not really what I expect from a ’Christmas’ brew, but McNeills is often unexpected. Strong aroma of the usual suspects for this style, though: cloves, nutmeg, licorice. Flavor is that of a spiced pale ale, but one that should be drunk warmer, to take an edge off the strong hoppiness and increase the subtle spice flavors. 2nd tasting (bottle, 2001): liked it a bit more, found the flavor more balanced; more accepting of the strong hoppingess. Not the brewer’s best, but worth a shot. 12/01/02 3rd try (2002 bottle) pumpkin pie spicing just as strong this year; flavor unfortunaltey seems to have dulled quite a bit. Uggh. This bottle is a faintly-spiced over-hopped dry dull-flavored pale ale, with little but aridity at the end and spices only faintly present before. Hope this was a bad bottle, but I’m going to have to rate it rather poorly for now.

Gingerbread and cinnamon figure prominently in the malty sweet aroma. Hazy orange-yellow body is topped by shy off-white head that recedes to lasting cover. Very sweet flavour has some strong ginger and notes of nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves and a fair finishing bitterness. Body is a touch on the thin side though carbonation is engaging. Bottle.
Rerate: 7-2-7-2-13=3.1 at YEHa’05.

Poured a hazy copper color with a medium sized, off white head, that left light lacing on the glass. Aroma of cinnamon, nutmeg, peppermint leaf, pine (or possibly spruce?). Spicy taste or cinnamon and all spice, light roastiness, pine, and a faint bitterness.