Alaskan Winter Ale

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

Serve in English pint, Snifter

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12oz. Bottle: Aroma of malt, butter, diacetyl, and a hit of caramel. Poured amber/orange in color with no head. Clear. Slightly sparking. Full of tiny particles throughout. Flavor is light to medium sweet. Tasted of diacetyl, butter, and some caramel. Medium body. Dry texture. Average carbonation. Butter, diacetyl, finish is lightly sweet and lightly bitter.

Picked up a single 12-oz bottle at John’s Marketplace in Portland, Oregon. Pours a semi-hazy copper amber brew with a fast dissolving off-white head. Aroma of caramel malt, spruce, some dark berries and a touch of spice. Taste is medium bodied, lightly carbonated , smooth creamy with flavors of caramel malt, raspberries and spruce hops. Taste is semi-sweet, dry character with a nice malt and berry aftertaste.

Sample in the Alaskan tap room. This brew pours a hazy, ruddy amber color with a medium thin light beige head that diminishes steadily. Stringy lacing. Aroma of pine, hops and fruit. Medium-bodied with a piney/spruce (prevents scurvy!) character, along with fresh fruit, hops and malt flavors. Touches of spice are present too. The finish is hoppy and malty with a fruit and spice aftertaste. Decent overall.

Pastuerised Bottle. From Safeway Supermarket. BBE July 2004. A watery, nutty scarlet colour. No head. Flat sweetish malt aroma - uninteresting. A hint of alcohol in the aroma. Slightly fat mouthfeel initially, then some hardness comes in with a little tingle at the end. Not great. Flavour is a boring sweet malt - pleasant enough, but quite simplistic. Finish is peanut skins. Drinkable, but quite dull, and little sign of craft, quality, or character. Not sure where those spruce tips appear.

Amber-orange-red, thin head; caramel-sugar aroma. Quite smooth, overly sugary sweet, but with a good malt base. Bit of a grape essence. Weird, but not too bad.

A super sweet malty aroma with a hint of some spices. It actually smells like sweet oranges to me. Pours orange with a beige head. Flavor is like sweet oranges too. Very malty. This beer has a little bit of spice as well. Pretty heavy mouthfeel. This was the third beer I had that day and it was definitley heavier on the palate than two APA’s.

12-oz. Pours a medium, clear amber with a tallish, moussy platinum blonde head. Bready nose with not much else going (is it my night for the bland leading the bland tonight or what?). Moderately assertive attack; medium body, hints of carb, somewhat forward flavors. The most striking--and perplexing--thing about this beer is the cherry note. It’s there on the mid palate and the finish. There’s the crackery breadiness of two row in there, and then the sweet cherry gumminess that must be the spruce. Alcohol is not as pronounced as the commercial description might lead you to believe.

12 oz bottle courtesy of Larry Pitonka (Feb 2006), cellar temperature service in a Unibroue stem glass. Pale, oily, slightly bubbly amber body topped by a small fizzy diminishing white cap....quite spicy nose is certainly sprucy, but I detect mint and licorice also, bubblegum and cherry....fairly odd, and somewhat plastic and artificial, but interesting and not lacking in intrigue....on the tongue there is a woody character immediately, almost a saplike consistency, with twiggy, rustic hops and a light pale malt base to things, not quite enough to support the intense spiciness, though a light honey sweetness helps out matters....finish is quite dry, somewhat lactic and sour. Carbonation low to moderate; this is a strange bird that would not I’d think have much appeal to those afraid of heavy spicing....luckily, that’s not me and I enjoy it, though I certainly can’t imagine drinking it often or in quantity. Thanks again Andre.

Clear orange amber with an orange-tinted head that recedes rapidly to a ring. Aroma of gooseberries and blackberries. Soft sweet malts and berry fruit fill the palate, subtle resinous hop note, mildly bitter finish. Interesting and delicious.

350 ml bottle from Holiday. sweet malty aroma. Sweet berry and cedar taste with hints of spice and juniper. Decent.