Winters Bourbon Cask Ale

Brewed by Anheuser-Busch InBev
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
St. Louis, Missouri USA

There’s something sickly sweet - like over-ripe vanilla beans or mashed strawberries - in the taste of this beer. It looks fine and smells appealing, but what could have been roasted, peated maltiness is ruined by some very obvious non-beer-related flavors. Another one of those efforts by AB here in the US to pull the wool over the eyes of real beer drinkers and steal market share from Sam Adams amongst the less beer inclined.

On tap. Pours an amber color with a quickly disappearing head. Sweet aroma, vanilla and caramel are present. Malty body, sweet but not overpowering, lots of vanilla and spices. Smooth finish. Great for A-B, average otherwise.

Mild cakey vanilla aroma which fades into the standard light lager aroma. Bad label, briliant clear orange beer with a beady tan head. Vanilla, unpleasantly bitter, acidic, not sweet. Except for the vanilla, rather bland and vacant. Body is watery, finish is clingy and bitter. Something tells me that this would be hangover inducing if you had more than 3.

A caramel colored beer with a nose also of caramel along with vanilla and a bit of spice. Flavor is a disappointment. It offers very little caramel and only a dash of vanilla. Wood is the most dominant flavor theme and even that is faint. There is bourbon in here? Warming helped some but not enough.
Earlier Rating: 11/24/2007 Total Score: 2.8
Body is clear amber in color with medium carbonation. Head is thin and white and does not hang around long. Aroma is lightly malty and pleasant. First taste is bolder than expected and grabs you with a malt / wood flavor. It soon settles into a sweet spiced vanilla beer. I don’t catch bourbon at all. Feel is almost syrupy. This beer is interesting but, as usual, the attempt to be slick by AB causes the product to suffer.

Pours clear bronze with a light tan head. The aroma has vanilla and lots of it. There is also hints of cream, wood and bourbon. Light body with semi-sharp carbonation. The taste is like cream soda with some sharpness and the faintest hint of bourbon. The finish is lightly spicy and sour. This beer was mediocre at best, yet probably the best A-B product I’ve had.

Aroma starts out almost candy-like with the combo of caramel and a hint of vanilla and initial taste confirms this. Just a faint hint of bourbon in aftertaste. Much better than expected.

Clear dark amber, thin fizzy tan head. Faint nose of vanilla fruitiness, toasted grains, and toffee. More vanilla flavor throughout, slightly grainy, with a very soft bitterness rounding it out. Light bodied, fizzy carbonation, dry vanilla finish. Kind of vanilla overkill going on. If you had a bit more bourbony and oak notes, you actually might have had something special here....

Dark copper color with a thin head. Slight bourbon aroma with a bit of chocolate. It tastes like water with vanilla extract. Not that it’s entirely terrible, just not decent beer.