Michelob Celebrate Vanilla Oak

Brewed by Anheuser-Busch InBev
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
St. Louis, Missouri USA

24 oz bottle 2006 edition of Vanilla Oak: My bottle was accidentally opened and leaking for about 4 hours ... I don’t know the impact. What a shitty bottle design. They put this plastic bullet thing over the top of a screw top like comes on a ’40’ ... literally scotch-taped on. I guess I accidentally twisted the bullet and loosened the screw top. Silly me. Anyway, it still has a robust brandy-like aroma. Very strong sugar-based flavors, almost like kids’ medicine. Interesting combination of the vanilla in the bourbon barrels. Comes out with a definite sweet flourish, but with the ruddy, caramel undercurrent that must come from the bourbon aspect? Unfortunately it doesn’t have near the consistency of a quality "big" beer ... it’s a bit thin, even thinner than the cream soda it’s starting to remind me of. I’d say, "just OK."

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.