Michelob Celebrate Vanilla Oak

Bottle. A screw cap was the first hint of trouble. A dark color with a laced white head. Cream soda like flavor with vanilla, sweet cherrys and a painful finish. Rating from Dec 2005 notes.

Pours slightly hazy ruby with a small white head. Definitely oak and vanilla in the aroma. The vanilla, however, is too strong and doesn’t mix well with the powerful alcohol. The mixture is reminiscent of plastic. Tastes like a bland beer with a touch of oak. Dry, lightly alcoholic finish. At least they tried. And the glasses that came in the gift set are pretty nifty.

A bright orange appearance with almost no head. A caramel, raisin, and alcohol aroma. The flavor is quite interesting with vanilla, oranges, honey, and lemons. The alcohol really shows through from beginning to end on this one. The twist off cap is still cracking me up. Overall it was not as bad as I had feared.

It looked like an honest to goodness beer with a copper color and decent off white head. That’s about where the beer similarities ended. It smells like kids broke into their parent’s cheap whiskey and to make the adult drink more kid-like they added both A&W Rootbeer and Cream Soda to it. The flavor seems to back up this theory. I tasted cream soda, rootbeer, alcohol, cheap sweet candy like whiskey (the kind sold in plastic bottles), vanilla extract, a faint malt note and no hops. Disgraceful beer.

Tried this one last year. I remember waking up the next morning and seeing a majority of the beer still left in the glass. The aroma was strong vanilla and some bourbon. It tasted like they took a beer made of adjuncts and cranked it up to 10% alcohol and then dropped way too much fake vanilla into the barrel and let it rot for a little while. Instead of honestly trying to make a quality beer, AB is taking their same crap beer and trying to add the characteristics people seek out in beer. Adding vanilla flavor and aging it in a bourbon barrell won’t fix the fact that it is a crappy beer.

The only celebration that I did was when I finally finished the 220z bottle. For $9.00 at a store with an infinite selection of great beers I keep cursing myself for picking this one. Aroma smelled like bourbon vanilla, didn’t look bad in the glass either, but the taste was incredibly mellow, watered down whiskey, the furthest thing from "beer" I’ve ever had including Miller Lite. If you see this, turn and run.

i bought this shit at a ghetto ass gas station outside of sarasota florida for like 10 dolla. it is very bad, way too much vanilla flavor that covers up the thin alcoholesque slightly malty beverage. i forgot to keep the glasses, dammit, that was the only good part.

Bottle, 2005 "vintage." Poured a really impressive ruby/amber with a very nice solif, thick and frothy head, that diminished somewhat quickly. At first scent it had an "off" character to it, I can’t put my finger on it. But once I tasted it it wasn’t too bad. There’s a slight bourbon note at the beginning, then follows carmalized apple and finally ozidized apple core. There’s a small amount of vanilla but at the same time some wet cardboard. This isn’t a horrible beer or anything, but it would be a great beer if they took some influence from imperial stouts, giving it a thicker texture or something. The other half of the bottle is up for grabs.