Schell Snowstorm (2009 - Baltic Porter)

Brewed by August Schell Brewing Company
Style: Baltic Porter
New Ulm, Minnesota USA

A dark brown beer. The Schell’s yeast is very perceivable in the flavor and aroma. Heavily roasted grains are the primary quality of this beer. Some lager yeast. I prefer the flavor while the beer is chilled, but the aroma opens up as it warms.

In the bottle and on tap at Crescent Moon. Pours black with a thick beige head. Has a mild coffee roasted aroma with just a bit of chocolate. Body is medium thick. Has a tempered chocolate malted sweetness of big Baltic Porters, but in a much milder form. This is likely as big as a Schell’s gets. Very tasty and drinkable.

Bottle served in Bells snifter: Pours deep brown, near black with ruby highlights topped by small creamy tan head and left good lace upon the glassware. The aroma has multilevel layers of vapours that change as it warms, starts with cocoa bean, black strap molasses, tobacco, and anise then becomes more vanilla bean, coffee, herbal hops and charred oak. The taste is rather sweet and syrupy at first with a noticeable chocolate covered plum overtone. Just like the nose, the palate changes as it warms and brings out some bitterness (coffee, hop, and smokey wood tannins). In the end it does come across a tad muddled. The mouth feel is medium-bodied and soft, there is a metallic finish which I do not care for. Overall, a good beer but do not come looking for a classic Baltic Porter. There are some classic characteristics but undertones are there which are unwelcoming.

I look forward to Schell’s Snowstorm as the bite of winter hits us upper midwesterners. Always a different style and something unexpected. This year, a Baltic Porter, is quite good. Flavors of rich milk chocolate, lightly roasted malts, and fruits. Warming and tasty. A nice one.

Bottle. Pours black with a medium-dark brown head. Aroma could be a little stronger but is a pleasant mix of roast malts. Taste is of bittersweet coffee. Very thick and creamy as a baltic porter usually is. Excellent beer.

Thanks to Bob for the bottle! Poured deep cola brown with a short cap of off-white head. The aroma was far on the sweet side for a Baltic porter, but it worked well for me when I drank it.. toasty baker’s chocolate, cocoa, and molasses led, with accents of vanilla and faint honeysuckle.. candied cake in a glass. The flavor was along the same lines.. slightly-astringent molasses and chocolate malts supported the core, while cocoa, vanilla, and tangy, earthy notes around.. lightly peppery with lots of residual sugars on the finish. Medium-bodied with low-ish carbonation on the palate.. very, very sweet, but warmth brought out a nice level of dry roast that balanced it out. I’d drink more of these.

2009 Bottle - thanks biniek13! Pours a thin dk brown with a small beige head...aroma is dk roast malt and a bit of metal, burnt grain and a bit of anise...flavour is similar, burnt malt, light hop bitters and light cocoa, a slightly sweet finish reminds me of some lactose sugar, decent...

Bottle pours dark with a decent head that retains somewhat. The aroma mostly of sweet roastiness. Flavor much the same with some of that Schells house flavor that I either imagine or just cannot get past. Not bad.