Michelob Celebrate Vanilla Oak

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

Brown with Red Tints Coloring with a White Ring. Rich Malty Vanilla and Oak Aroma. The Aroma Really Made This Brew a Surprise. The Vanilla is a Very Solid Rich Aroma. The Oak Barrells do Give Off a Toasted Bourbon and Oak Smell. If You Were Going to Barrel Age a Beer, These are the Notes I’d Want to Strive For. For the Most Part, the Aroma Carries Onto the Tongue. The Vanilla Does Not Recede and Heavy and Solid Presence of Barrel Aging Comes Through Very Well...and After Several Sips, a Light Watery Beer Taste Seems to Come Up at the Back of Your Mouth. Overall the Vanilla Bourbon Barrel Aroma and Taste are Superb and Perhaps Taste Best When Using a Relatively Even Keeled Beer as a Base. For Complexities’ Sake, I would Love to See These Flavors on Top of a Robust Stout or Other Full Bodied Beer. End the End, it’s Like Trying to Dress up a Bad Beer, but They Did a Damn Find Job of it. Cheers to Michelob for a Nice Job!

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!

Tasted at Churchill’s with Ivan, Tim, Aaron, and Dave. I think Ivan broke out this 2005 2yr old gem. Some melanoidin. Very mellow and soft for a 10% beer. Small head. Vanilla is noticable, but probably subdued from the age. I’m sure this one’s under-rated because of the Michleob name, and should be rated blind. Pretty nice 3.7-3.9.

05 drank in 09, shoulda held on to this one. I imagine at first it was an over carbonated, oak powered Michelob abortion. 4 years later: smooth oak, vanilla balance with caramel some cherry, very pleasant! Not worth $10+, mine was free, but if it came back out I’d get another one for $6-8

Again, rampant anti-macro bias on this one. A 2.77 avg. rating? Puhlease. If I were to lower each category’s score to the worst case scenario I could, It would end up with a 3.0. A 2.77 is a travesty. The screw off cap is a bad idea. Not because it reminds people of how Canada Dry sodas are capped, but because it doesn’t provide as tight a seal as either a traditional cap or cork. AB has the resources to spend the extra on a cork, and they should have done it. And sure enough, when I opened the brew, there was minimal pressure and as I look at the brew it barely has a head and very little visible carbonation. Fresh, strong, butterscotch caramel aroma. Inviting. I wouldn’t necessarily have guessed vanilla, but I see it. Beautiful slightly hazy body with the aforementioned very small, off-white ring and very little visible carbonation. Initial mouthfeel is strong alcohol. And as I suspected, the mouthfeel is undercarbonated. I hope AB fired the guy who came up with the screwtop idea. Sweet, strong and butterscotchy. Actually quite good. I just wish it had some more carbonation. Now that I think about it, this is not unlike AB’s Winter’s Bourbon Cask Ale, but with more alcohol. Like the Winter’s Bourbon, I don’t taste any Oak aging. Again, I don’t really taste vanilla and wish I did. I read all these folks paying in the teens for a gift set that included a couple of glasses; I "only" paid "$5.99 for my 24 oz bottle, but it clearly has been sitting for awhile. Not sure if there are different vintages of this, but the box said 2005. Not a bad beer, and clearly the best brew in their newfound effort at going craft. A little one dimensional; doesn’t have much complexity. If they are going after the Michelob crowd, this recipe probably works, but among the beer aficionado set, they still have some improvement to make.

Bottle gift set that included 2 Celebrate glasses. Poured a small ivory fizzy head that mostly diminished, transparent, carbonated, and a red amber hue. Malty, caramel, vanilla, bourbon notes, and alcohol nose. Flavor was rather surprising from AB-caramel, bourbon, dry, vinuous, vanilla, thick, sweet, and some maltiness. Mouthfeel was dry, thick, tingly and vinuous. Medium body.

Aroma and taste are pretty similar. Oak,vanilla,semi sweet malt,hints of bourbon,dried dark fruits. I’m not getting ANY hops in this like others have noted. ABV is fairly well masked. Gotta give a macro a big thumbs up for a decent attempt. With a little tweaking this could damn good.

2005 bottle. First of all, leave it to Michelob to put a CHEAP twist off on their special brew. Aroma of vanilla, bourbon (nice!), and green sour apples in there too (?). Dominated by vanilla. Interesting aroma. Flavor is also very heavy on the vanilla. I get a hint of the bourbon as well. The bourbon is nicely done. Very cream soda-ish. Softly coats my mouth and actually has a nice mouthfeel. Hides the high alcohol % nicely. Not a show stoppingly good brew...but good nonetheless. IMO, it’s on the verge of being great. Impressive for an American macro company.