Carolina Brewery Santas Secret

Brewed by Carolina Brewery
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Chapel Hill, North Carolina USA

Tried this first at the Black Friday Cask Festival at Triangle Brewing - tried it again today on tap at Papa Mojo’s in Cary NC... pours a clear copper with a thin white head - decent lacing. Aroma of malt, ginger, plenty of allspice and pumpkin... taste is malty, spicy and again, lots of pumpkin... acually tastes more like a fall pumpkin beer than a winter brew to me. Not a bad beer by any means though - just not one I could drink more than 1 or 2 of.

I’m giving this beer the ’interesting award’ for the year. Smells and tastes like Christmas ginger bread houses. Strong aroma and taste of cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and some slight malt. This flavor is too odd to enjoy more than one of tho. I couldn’t quite place if it was too sweet or what, but it was good enough to drink one of and switch to something else. Despite the fact that I didn’t rate it that high, I recommend you try one if you can.

Draught at the brewery. Pours a copper amber with a mild haze. The nose is sweet and spicy, nutmeg, allspice, malty sweetness, some leafy character. The flavor puts this as like an amber ale with a prominent sweet spice profile. Mild sweetness from the malt, allspice and nutmeg on the flavor, mild hoppy spicy bitterness. Crisp hop bitterness on the palate. Decent brew.

Flavorful beer- but too many spices. Tastes very much like a all spice, cinnamin comination with a taste of ginger. I’m not much of a fan of ginger. You can’t drink too many of these, but it is worth the try.

Name: Santa’s Secret
Date: 02/02/2008
Mode: Draft
Source: Brewpub

Appearance: clear copper, fine beige head,
Aroma: sweet caramel malt aroma with lots of ginger and cinamon aroma,
Flavor: rich sweet malt candy flavor, lots of ginger and cinamon, light bitterness comes out of the spices,

Aroma: 6/10; Appearance: 6/10; Flavor: 7/10; Palate: 6/10; Overall: 12/20
Rating: 3.1/5.0
Drinkability: 6/10
Score: *4

Draft at the brewery. Smells heavenly of cloves, cinnamon, brown sugar. and everything wonderful. The first flavors to hit the tongue match the nose, but after a few sips its gets thinner and thinner. By the end it gets sour and watery, but still tastes lovely on the tongue. It seems like they decided to super flavor a beer that didn’t have the body to withstand the onslaught of spices that they had in mind. Nice effort for a superficial beer.

Pours a transparent copper ruby with a stringy wispy-lacing white head. Sweet cinnamon potpourri nose has some honey, ginger and clove character with some light fruitiness. Body starts brown sugary sweet and well-spiced with some cherry notes towrad a drier, crisp finish. A nice winter warmer.

Pint at brewpub. Good aroma, sweet & spice. Cinnamon & nutmeg. Toffee/caramel. Clean coppery orange color. Little to no head or lace. Spiced flavor, like aroma spices rule the day. Medium body, creamy smooth mouthfeel, spiced sweet finish. Tasty,easy to drink but I dunno. Seems kind of a common attempt at a winter offering