Alaskan Winter Ale

Brewed by Alaskan Brewing Co
Style: Old Ale
Juneau, Alaska USA

12 ounce bottle courtesy of Sparky27. Thanks! Pours a slightly hazy copper color with a thin head. Decent head retention and lacing. Aroma of pine and caramel with a buttery note. Taste is toasted malts, spruce, candied citrus, butter and caramel. Medium bodied.

Pours moderately amber with a average white head. Fruity malt aroma with maple, vanilla and a hint of spice. Flavor is very sweet, toasty, fruity malts with pepper and spice. Another wonderful Alaskan brew.

Bottle at Hamilton Creek Brewery tasting. Pours amber with a white head. Medium bodied with average carbonation. Toffee and honey like malt backbone complimented by spruce and berry. Sweet but just short of over doing it. Not bad

The pour is a clear, pale gold color with a white, creamy, frothy, average head which does leave a nice frothy layer throughout and some matching lace. The nose is fairly simple with some toasted cereal, spruce, and sweet biscuits. The flavor is similar with cereal, sweet biscuits, light caramel, spicy hops and the spruce. The palate is fair with a medium body, watery but refreshing mouthfeel, and lively carbonation. The finish is mildly bitter from the Saaz hops (spicy/floral), sprucey, and light honey. Pretty simple beer, especially for a winter beer. It is refreshing and drinkable but nothing in this does much for me. This brewery does some excellent small batch beers but very mediocre year round stuff.

Bottle. Pours an orange body with an off white head. Fresh hop tones, pine, and spruce, and plenty of caramel for a backbone. Light fruit tones with some pine and hop resins to finish. Good.

Bottled. Poured medium orange with a short, looser-bubbled off-white head. The aroma picked up primarily honey maltage with some candied caramel behind.. warm, wintery spices and spruce around.. not bad. The flavor found the same malts at the core, again with an emphasis on the honey.. toasty, earthy spices and black pepper accented.. warm finish brightened up by a little spruce.. tasty. Medium-bodied, slick, and dry on the palate.. the spices were a bit sharp on the back.. decent overall feel.

Hmm. On one hand, they shouldn’t call it an Olde Ale, because it doesn’t measure up to the more expensive Fourth Dementias and Curmudgeons and Third Coasts out there. On the other hand, the commercial description isn’t plastered all over the packaging, so most people don’t think they’re buying one. Transparent golden amber, white head with below average retention and minimal lacing. Somewhat weak aroma of lager-like cereal grassiness and metal from a wet basement. A little more complex with a longer flavor profile than a lager (hint of sweet, then nice crisp bitter, then clean finish), but not terribly more enjoyable than a lager. The first sip is the point of diminishing returns. I liked each next sip a little bit less. I like flavors to hit me across the head, and this one doesn’t. Probably a one-time purchase. Far as Alaskan goes, not much beyond the Barleywine, Smoked Porter and Stout (& maybe the Baltic Porter and ESB) win my applause.

Pours golden orange with a fluffy off white head. The aroma is dusty hops with some spices and toffee. The flavor is sweet with some bubblegum and spice. The finish brings in the spruce like bitterness. Kind of thin.