4.3 AROMA 8/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 8/10 PALATE 5/5 OVERALL 18/20
<HTML>This is a great winter session beer. While it doesn’t rank high in the warming category, it is absolutely delicious! It’s a lot like Sam Adams Winter Lager only with less alcohol. The price was a little steep ($7.79 + 8% tax + deposit) for a beer with only 4.5% ABV. I will try it again, but not as often as I would like, due to the steep price.
4.1 AROMA 8/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 9/10 PALATE 4/5 OVERALL 16/20
My first cask beer and also had it during my first visit to Spuyten Duyvil in Brooklyn as well.
Pours a slightly clouded dark ruby brown with a thick tan head. Nose is fruity sweet with a sugary presence. Taste is a firm hop presence, but not overpowering. Nice wood flavor that is easy going and not overdone. Feel is smooth and silky. Goes down oh so smooth. Highly drinkable off the cask and well worthy of losing my cask virginity to, apparently.
4 AROMA 8/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 8/10 PALATE 4/5 OVERALL 16/20
UPDATED: DEC 6, 2007 Amber with good, foamy beige head / Sweet malty, toffee nose / Medium, creamy body with good finish / Moderately sweet flavors of burnt sugar with undertones of semisweet chocolate / A fuller bodied amber with sweet, syrupy character.
4 AROMA 9/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 8/10 PALATE 4/5 OVERALL 15/20
I will call it a sexy amber pour for a cold winter day. Thin head, great balance of hops and malt hints of spice. Delightful caramel / spice scent. Blue Point nailed it again with this seasonal.
4 AROMA 8/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 7/10 PALATE 4/5 OVERALL 17/20
Very nice red color with a light tan head which lingers for a while. Nice malty background with lots of hops to balance it out. Aroma is has more english hop aroma similar to a nice esb. Would have been better with more alcohol to make it a better winter beer.
3.9 AROMA 7/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 8/10 PALATE 4/5 OVERALL 16/20
Brightly dark ruby brown color that is brilliantly bold to view through. Capping is smallish and creamy tight of a light sandy tan hue. Keeps a firm skim present the whole consumption period. Packed in spotty lacing is stitched across the glass with good sticking power.
Aroma is soft of cocoa powdered fluff with a bit of whole grain breadyness thats a titch on the sweetened doughy side.
Taste is firm and round of some soft brown bread dough sweetness, some cocoa hints, perhaps a drip of maple. Semi soft and drying hoppy finish that’s fresh and green with a hint of grass and grain.
Feel is about medium with fairly solid tone and firm carbonation that keeps a nice tight tang and smallish bite of action adding to the overall flavors.
A nice drinking Winter ale (Red/Brown ale) thats soft, firm, and just tasty enough.
3.9 AROMA 8/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 8/10 PALATE 4/5 OVERALL 15/20
For breakfast, with egg-topped parmesan polenta and a side of roasted sprouts and chestnuts. Tap@The Park on 10th Ave, 18/12/11. Mahogany with a persistent cream top. Heady choc-sprinkled fig aroma; dark breads, malt loaf. Balanced, malt loafy, doppelbock-like and smothered in milk choc, fig and lactic goodness. Trace of nuts. Full and rich, very festive. Could have been in Munich with this one. 4.5%??! Had to go and check the handpull to confirm I’d got the right beer. Blue Point’s dark efforts impress me.
3.9 AROMA 8/10 APPEARANCE 5/5 TASTE 7/10 PALATE 4/5 OVERALL 15/20
Tea and vanilla aroma, maybe a little toffee. Tea colored, with a medium yellow head, good lacing. Malt forward swiftly transitioning to tea and cherries at midpalate. Finishes with grass and moss. Unusually bitter for an amber. Perhaps a little over done with whatever hop gives the bitter mossiness. At the same time, I think it may appeal to people who like that. It’s quite good, and it certainly is different.
3.8 AROMA 6/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 7/10 PALATE 5/5 OVERALL 16/20
They say first impressions are everything, and if that’s true I’d say Blue Point Brewery from Patchouge, Long Island did a good job of making a potential loyal customer out of me. As a fellow New Yorker I’ve been itching to try this brewery for a while, but wasn’t able to until recently when I tried their Winter Ale. It’s described as a “hearty and robust amber ale” – which really caught my attention. While I wouldn’t say it’s quite as great as the description says (then again, what beer is?) it was enough to satisfy me.
APPEARANCE AND AROMA
Blue Point Winter Ale pours exactly how it’s supposed to – an amber/reddish, crystal-clear body. It produces a very fluffy, slightly off-white head which lasts throughout the life of the drink and regenerates very easily. Oddly, it did not leave much lacing on the glass.
The aroma was typical for a beer of the style with a nose indicative of hops with a mild floral scent. There’s also a malty sweetness, but it’s also subdued. I was hoping for a more inviting aroma but this’ll do.
TASTE
Sometimes a beer does not conform to its style which is not necessarily a bad thing. Blue Point Winter Ale does “follow the script” of an amber ale quite well. Up front there’s a significant hop bitterness with a slightly pine flavor which finishes rather sweet. The beer is made with four types of malts including chocolate, although I wouldn’t say this is a candy-like beer at all.
The hops eventually fade away as the malts take over making for a mostly sweet, yet fairly mild beer. It’s just a tad bit watery to give the beer a clean finish. There is also an aftertaste, albeit mild, of baker’s chocolate and perhaps a hint of caramel. I’ve had other amber ales which had the same flavors present but their intensity was double or triple that of Blue Point’s.
Overall, it’s satisfying mostly because I believe this is an intentionally pedestrian beer and if that’s the case it works.
DRINKABILITY
Becoming a hophead is not a title a beer-drinker tends to earn overnight. Hop bitterness is an acquired taste, but if done properly it can be made drinker-friendly which is what Blue Point has seemingly done with their Winter Ale.
With a very soft, yet fairly heavy mouthfeel combined with the mild palate, this is a beer the pedestrian and the beer geek can throw back quickly and easily. At 5.5% ABV it doesn’t overwhelm and has a well-proportioned body for its flavor profile and beer style. I also believe it’s something of an “all-purpose” beer when it comes to food pairings considering its mild, yet satisfying, taste.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I’m not sure what took me this long to try a relatively local brewery, but I (hopefully) picked a good beer to introduce me to the Blue Point Brewing Company. Winter Ale has enough flavor to satisfy the beer geeks while still remaining drinker-friendly to do the same for more Joe and Jane Six Pack.
NOTE: Watch the video version of this review at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvF7FbOavGM
3.7 AROMA 7/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 8/10 PALATE 4/5 OVERALL 14/20
UPDATED: MAR 9, 2012 Cask version @ Cambridge House: This one pours a dark, amber-brown color. There was almost no head and no lacing on this one. The aroma contains notes of spices, caramel malts and some fruits. The taste is good. Fairly malty, with some spices. Chocolate and fruits in the background. A nice winter brew.
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