Michelob Celebrate Vanilla Oak

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

Aroma of malt, hops, pit fruit and vanilla, deep copper, pours a tiny tan head. Flavour is vanilla, malt, some great hops. Medium bodied, very well balanced, alcohol is rather subtle. Terrific!

Amber color. Not very thick or rich. Some slight vanilla with lots of sweetness. Enjoyable. Alcohol’s pretty well hidden, too.

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.

Low head, clear amber. Vanilla nose, cream soda flavor. Comes out as flat yet without the silkiness of a good strong ale. Some alcohol present, to no serious effect. Not bad, just not good.

Light red-amber color, with almost no head. Vanilla and a little malt come through in the aroma.Vanilla taste with a heavy dose of ethanol that comes through in the taste and then permeates into the aroma as you imbibe so that it really doesn’t taste like beer. (almost as if you mixed some cheap vodka and vanilla into a light beer). Thanks to Enniskillen for this bottle too!

Aroma is oaken with caramel and some vanilla cola. The alcohol is quite present in the aroma and the taste. The appearance is copper with a thin head. The taste has vanilla, brown sugar, malt, and slightly smoky. The palate is not as full as I had hoped but it is the acidic taste in the back of my throat that seems to hurt this beer. But, overall it’s worth having.

21-Nov-06 (24 oz bullet-shaped bottle, part of Celebrate gift pack: $17.99 at BevMo in La Jolla, CA) After sampling the Celebrate Chocolate, things can only get better with the Vanilla Oak, or at least I’m hopeful that’s the case. The beer pours a deep copper color with perfect clarity. The light-tan head, however, is small and short-lived, fully dissipating in under two minutes. Without even bringing the glass to my nose for a full sniff, the fragrance of vanilla is pretty overpowering, almost like a vanilla-scented candle. It’s extremely sweet with a bit of alcohol coming through. And in the flavor, the sweet vanilla is also achieving a extreme level of dominance that makes the beer so out of whack, it’s not enjoyable. Couple that with a harsh, astringent bitterness, and this beer is almost as disappointing as Celebrate Chocolate. Underlying flavors are more or less lost on me. A modest butteriness emerges in the finish as the beer warms, but the astringency picks up considerably as well, so I think this beer is best when served at mid-30s temperature. Actually, it’s probably best when not served at all. Light-medium in body with plentiful carbonation, but the astringency of the mouthfeel is a significant issue. While this half of the gift pack is more enjoyable than Celebrate Chocolate, it’s poorly constructed, simply a vanilla bomb to mask the underlying beer.

Malty, strong lager aroma witih cake. Y’know, they could have sprung for a crimp-cap bottle, or a corked bottle, for the ridiculous price that they wanted for a bomber. Very sweet, pretty nicely balanced. Vanilla is a Russian roulette ingredient from what I’ve seen -- it can either be soft and add a great dark, fermented compliment to the brew, OR it can come off as artificial and cloying. AB does a good job of the former. Nice bittering - in part hops, in part good old hydroxyethane. Does well as it warms, a fair sipping brew. Overall, it’s cakey. I just wish AB wouldn’t use Michelob as the point of departure for all it’s macro ’craft’ specials. Medium body, finish is fadeaway vanilla. Glad I waited for the after-Christmas markdown. Wish I’d waited for the after-Valentine’s Day markdown.