Viking Brewing Juleøl

Brewed by Viking Brewing Company
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Dallas, Wisconsin USA

A bottle still available in April 2007? Pours a hazy pale yellow with very frothy head. The aroma is lemon and orange citrus with a touch of clove/mincemeat. Hops present with a hin of nutmeg. The taste is sweet and yeasty with a light barley malt. It has good depth of palate without going over the top with too much spice.

Gotta love how Chicones lets you make your own 4 packs.Hazy golden color,small white head that faded quickly leaving little behind.The aroma was nicely spicy with some good fruity citrus notes and a mild malty side.The flavor was decent but nothing special.Light malty side some decent spice notes and a bit of a fruity citrusy side.It’s decent but nothing special.

Large bright white head of fine bubbles. Good carbonation. Light fruity and and spicy aroma. Little orange and nutmeg. Little bit of bayberry also. Medium gold in color with a slight haze. Light and crisp flavor. Fizzy in the mouth. Light sourness. How do I say this. Kind of tastes like the way I would think a high volitile glue would taste. Weird. Seems like a lot of VOC in there. Dry palate and spicy. Dry chemical finish. Not necessarily bad but definately something new. Must be the combination of spices.

(22 oz bottle: Obtained in trade with JK, thanks John!) I had a few ounces of this beer several months ago and given that this beer tastes fairly sour this time around, I’d say there’s something bad happening with this beer. Usually these sour, infected beers taste terrible, but honestly, it still tastes pretty good! It’s sour, make no doubt about it, but it’s very clearly a lemony sourness. I can’t say I taste anything else other than a dry chalkiness in the background, and the aroma is all yellow citrus, but it’s pretty refreshing on the palate. It’s yellow-golden in color and fairly clear with a tall, white head. The second pour is much more cloudy as yeast escapes the bottle when there are still a few ounces left. At this point, the aroma is much more funky and less citric. More funk in the flavor too, but lemon still dominates. I’ll have to get another bottle to really experience the true intentions of the brewery, but despite the infection, I actually finished the entire bomber of beer!

Poured a hazy pale yellow color with a medium sized white head. Spiced aroma with notes of lavender and spruce. Spiced flavor with some tart and tanginess. Dry finish.

MN Winter Get Together, 2006. Sugary, buttery, unique aroma. Hazy, very light yellow, peach color. Flavor is bland, blah, ugg. No flavor in fact. Not worth your while.

This looks a lot like a BMC light beer, fizzy head with light golden colour that is completly transparent. Almost has a sour aroma, but centers on the citrus side of things with ginger breadyness in there as well. Very light taste that dances down my tongue. This isn’t abig in your face type of beer, but it could be, and that wouldn’t be a bad thing.

12 oz bottle from Cellars in Minnetonka, MN (Dec 2005). I love the bottle design, a bunch of happy kids dancing in a circle around a Christmas tree...bring a warm feeling. Ok, the beer itself: it pours a foggy dark gold with a muscular but quick-decaying snow-white head....nose assaults with lemon/orange-peel and lots of ginger, baked apples, possibly some cinnnamon and cardamom, and sourdough....somewhat "light" for a spiced beer, not at all like say Anchor OSA but just as distinctive....much less spice in the body, though there is a subtle candyish quality running through, and the lemon-gingery character is restrained and refreshing rather than overpowering or cloying....light German yeastiness there, too, making the supple mouthfeel a bit more complex and memorable....moderately sweet and fairly heavily carbonated and prickly at first, this dries and smooths out a lot, with just a hint of honey thickness through to the finish....quite lovely, a surprise for me as I was beginning to completely give up on this brewery. Probably the best I’ve had from them.