Winters Bourbon Cask Ale

Bottle. Coppery with a thin nearly white head. Aroma is sweet with some vanilla, very little bourbon, and no roasted malt. The vanilla flavor is evident and is good, not much for bourbon flavors, and a lot of caramel sweetness. A little cherry cough syrup in the background. Fairly low carbonation and a light mouthfell that still hides the alcohol completely. Not complex by any means, but very drinkable. As with all A-B beers, ratings will suffer from the "I hate big breweries" mentality.

Pours a watery looking translucent burgundy-brown color. Produces an inital loose, fluffy tan head which quickly dissapates to a spotty, wispy film. Aroma is definitely dominated by the vanilla bean which seems authentic (as opposed to an artificially infused aroma). If you like tha aroma of vanilla bean in an ale this will seem somewhat pleasing and authentic. Some aromas of spices and toasted malts also appear faintly in the background. Mouthfeel is very disappointing for a beer of this style. Very thin and watery; no heft or body whatsoever. Weak and wimpy. Flavor starts out with some nice notes of vanilla bean, allspice, nutmeg, and roasted malts but unfortunately quickly trancends into a somewhat medicinal finish. I ended up blending one of these with an Anchor 2006 OSA and one with one of my homebrewed 9.2% abv English Strong Ales which rescued it to some extent. Try one if you so desire, but pass on a whole sixer like I did.

Had this one at the Blues v. Sabres game tonight. Poured a red with a medium white head. Aroma is somewhat malty, lots of vanilla in there, as well as some wood esters and mild hop citrus. Flavor is...interesting. The vanilla is kind of nice, and you can taste the barrell, which is nice. I think if they would have given this treatment to a better base, say an Amber Bock or a Bareknuckle (I said better, not good), they might have been on to something. As it stands the weak, watery base works hard against the beers few good character points. There are hints of malts, hops, and even yeast (shocking!), but it’s heavily watered down, undoubtedly in an attempt to remain palateable to this brewer’s target audience of watery fizz drinkers. At least (lowest ranked) St. Louis beat (highest ranked) Buffalo.

Stumbled across a six pack of this at the local supermarket, so being the ratings whore that I am, I decided to pick up a sixer and give this a try. Pours an amber color with a thin white head. The aroma is dominated by the vanilla beans, with only the bourbon barrel breaking thru on the finish of the beer. Too bad this wasn’t sold in singles, because now I’m giving away the other fiver beers. This wasn’t worth the effort.

Amber beer, thin off white head. The aroma is all vanilla… seriously, you could use this to bake with. More vanilla than vanilla coke. A touch of sweet caramel in back. Smells and tastes like vanilla cola. So intensely sweet and syrupy that it barely resembles beer anymore. I usually love vanilla character in beer, but this is taking it too far. Light woodiness in back. Probably started as an alright brew, but the vanilla clobbers it into submission.

Bottle. No head. Deeep copper brown in color. Vanilla and caramel aroma. Nothing good here.

Pours a reddish brown, tea-like color with a cream-ish head. Smells strongly of vanilla, slightly of alcohol, almost candy-like. Tastes like soda, STRONG vanilla flavor, very very little bourbon taste, if any. It essentially tastes like vanilla extract smells. No real bite or fizz or challenge to it, very watery.
Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale beats the pants off of this stuff. For something from AB, it’s pretty reasonable, but again, nothing remarkable, nothing challenging, nothing doing. Won’t be drinking this again after I finish this six.

bud with vanilla extract and carmel added and hardly any burbon flavor noticable. Still a big step up compared to bud so its rating is about right.