Wisconsin Cranberry Special Ale

Brewed by Sand Creek Brewing Co. (Pioneer/Wisconsin Brewing Co.)
Style: Fruit Beer
Black River Falls, Wisconsin USA

First tasted this at Sud’s Club Fruit Beer Night. Had it again at MHC’s Ales, Pales, Sticks & Stouts tasting and took home the left overs. It’s a good fall beer, not too sweet, not too sour. Very tasty.

Bottle thanks to 17thfloor. Clear light orange/amber with small white head. Aroma is slightly sweet and fruity with light caramell malt coming through as well. Flavor is sweeeeeeeet red apple up front that transitions to cranberry in the finish, a little lemon some caramel, woah. Medium to thin creamy body. Wow this is like drinking straight apple juice.

12oz bottle. Hazy orange tan color. Tart cranberry taste, quite nice and refreshing. Relatively light bodied, but still packs a punch flavor-wise. Crisply effervescent. Lemony tang at first fades into a cherry like finish, or cranberry as it were. This is a really great beer, vastly underrated.

12 oz bottle courtesy of the infamous Binnys singles rack (Orland Park, Il). Pours a medium hazy amber pour with offwhite medium head that begins to dissipate. Aromas are tart cranberries, not sweet, with cereal maltiness and a touch of skunk. Initial is tart cranberries, light cereal sweetness, no earlier evident skunk in the brew. Light fruit sweetness, but largely a tart natural cranberry feel. Finish is more fruit apparent, leaves a touch of tartness and flavor in the aftertaste. Pretty good, surprisingly. Decent body, still light and sessionable. A little one dimensional. But, this is not as bad as people seem to think.

Pours a dull caramel color with no bubbles and a very thin white sudsy head. Smells of stale beer, grainy, malty, and lightly of fruity cranberries. First taste is sweet and tangy, some funky grains, moldy malts, a touch of tart cranberry and then finishes horribly. The finish is like puke, its basically undrinkable because of that. Medium light body with softer fizzy carbonation. Beer of last resort. O shhhhh I just released this is my first rating of 2009... hopefully no indication of the rest of my rating-year.

Light body with slight hints of sweet cranberry in the nose. Flavor is balanced decently with tart cranberry and a light sweetness. Not so terrible.

Aroma is faint, some grassy hops and malt, no fruit that I can tell. Nice to look at, clear medium amber, fizzy white head, spots of lace. Flavor begins grassy, and then there’s a tart surge of cranberries, which quickly fades and what’s left is a cream ale, biscuit and sweet iced tea malts, stale oyster cracker finish. Sharp carbonation, puckering mouthfeel.

Bottle courtesy of mother in law. Week fruit and metalic aroma. Amber body with decent head. Flavor was more on the sweet malted grain side and not much fruit flavor. Tart carbinated beer that was just blah.