Winters Bourbon Cask Ale

Had this beast out at the farm a few weeks back. It wast horrible but i wouldnt drink alot of it either. Alot of vanilla and bourbon flavors, though they didnt seem natural, more like artificial flavoring. weird brew bud, weird brew.

Picked up this brew since I didn’t have a wide selection at the store I was at outside of the standard Bud, Coors and Miller...just cracked one open and was immediately overwhelmed by the strong vanilla aroma, which was remarkably pleasant. The bourbon ’hint’ is evident immediately upon hitting the palate, but quickly dissolves into a watery, flavor-lacking brew. Carbonation is high. After a few swigs, I took another gander at the bottle and noticed it was an AB product, which explains just about everything. Would question the ’limited edition’ tag as well...not the best, but would take this over a Bud or Bud Light any day and twice on Sunday...

Dear Lord. I’d rather drink Bud Light. Did A-B pay people to rate this beer as high as it is? Tastes like Watkins Vanilla Bean extract, poured over a Gem Cream Soda and filtered through Peyton Manning’s jock (maybe he’ll do a commercial for this as well). I thought maybe a shot of rum would make this palatable. It did not.

Better than a lot of "big" brewery attempts at craft brewing. Carbonation was very low and head was almost non-existant. As a result, the taste was a little flat (due to lack of carbonic acid and no bubbles to tease the tongue). Vanilla bean & bourbon flavors are balanced nicely with the hops and malts. Hope they get the carbonation problem fixed soon. ($6.73 per 6-pack here)

This spiced ale pours a light red amber color from a 12oz bottle. Small to little head. Aroma is mild, some corn sweetness, some oak, some vanilla and some cherries. A light to medium bodied spiced ale. Malts are caramel and sweet with a touch of oak. Some vanilla. A touch sweet. A little thin a watery. There is a bit of oak/wood bite at the finish. The vanilla and the bourbon flavors are very subdued. There is little to no carbonation, which really doesn’t help any. Drinkable, but a little weird. Mouthfeel is thin. Finish is clean and crisp. Aftertaste is slightly sweet with some oak.

Bottle. Head is initially small, fizzy/frothy, light brown, mostly diminishing. Body is clear medium to dark amber. Aroma is lightly malty (caramel, cookie), with notes of vanilla, whisky, corn syrup, wood. Flavor is moderately sweet, lightly bitter. Finish is lightly to moderately sweet, lightly to moderately bitter. Medium body, watery texture, lively carbonation. There are some peculiar things about this one. Not about the beer itself, which is unremarkable, but the bottle. First, the artwork is horrible and the name of the beer is very awkward...this is A-B, so there should be about 1000 times the cost of the beer put into marketing, right? Apparently not. Secondly, the description clearly says (in two places on the label) that it was aged "on" (not "in") oak. I suppose this is an acceptable phrasing, admittedly, but it does amusingly conjure up metal vats of the beer sitting somewhat above a bunch of empty barrels (for what, a few days?). Anyways, besides the funnies, the beer is what you might expect from these micro-like A-B attempts; akin to a crayon-drawn version of an oil painting. Simple, somewhat artificial/fake, soda-like, and clumsy.

Pours a five finger cream head that fades quickly to a thin layer leaving some lace. Clear amber color. Slight vanilla nose. Light-medium carbonation and light-medium bodied. Flavor is sweet, smooth vanilla and some hops, kind of like a vanilla coke without the fizz but with hops. Not like any cask ale I have tasted, no hints of bourbon. $1.75 for a 12oz from Barb’s Beer Emporium Concord, NH.

Surprisingly good brew from AB. A tad on the sweet side but with a moderately complex palate of vanilla and smoke. The syrupy aftertaste reminds me more of a soda than a brew, but a hell of a lot better than most macrobrewed shlock.