Stone/Nøgne Ø/Jolly Pumpkin Special Holiday Ale

Brewed by Stone Brewing Co.
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Escondido, California USA

Bottle at Chris o New Year tasting 08/09. Spicy/herby aroma. Some fruity hop. It’s ok, but not great. Lots of ginger. Bit out of balance and too spicy.

Juniper comes through on the nose bigtime, a bit reminiscent of a sahti, but cleaner; more like gin. The sage comes through pretty solidly too. Earthy, dry flavor with wave after wave of interesting herbal notes. Super mouthfeel. Very nice, and an interesting beer, above all else.

Reviewed 12/30/2008 (bottle): Pours a dark brown reddish color body, with a smallish off-white head. Coriander or maybe juniper, floral aroma. Spiciness and some sweetness too. But not very strong. Sweet spicy taste, very wintery. Floral taste. Very soft and creamy mouthfeel. A little hot, some dark fruit taste. A nice light-tasting spiced beer.

Bottle. Aroma heavy on the sage with subtle notes of bitter juniper berries. Also a lovely, sweet, toasted, pumpernickel-ish malt. Flavor again lots of the sage with earthy nutty notes, presumably from the chestnuts, but could be from elsewhere in the beer too. Despite thee prevalence of the sage, it was certainly not overwhelming and in fact worked well with the aforementioned malt. A very nice beer.

watered down pumpkin shiznit no me gusto mucho porque para eso me tomo una horchata o un fresco de chan. la cerveza debe saber a birria

Pours a deep brown. Very interesting aroma. I had trouble placing the actually spices and it wasn’t until i read the bottle that it made sense. The flavor is of a belgian that was been attacked by the spice cabinet. It caught me a little off guard. The sage was the only one that I could really identify in the flavor. While it is a very interesting beer and I’m glad to have tried it, it was far from my favorite.

Dark brown pour with garnet highlights. Fluffy white head and drippy honey comb lace. The sage and juniper berries really show them self on the aroma. Spicy phenolic flavor with was a little too overpowering for my taste buds. A creative attempt at a unique style.

I really enjoyed this beer, herbal nose of basil? I don’t see it listed in the ingredients, but big pesto note to it. Dry and herbal, long spicy finish over the sweeter toasty malt base. Dark red/brown body with a tall off-white head. Funky herbal beer, kinda Fantome like. Very soft tart note, could have stood to be a touch more sour/tart, but delicious none-the-less.