Heavy Seas Winter Storm (2005-) (Imperial ESB)

Brewed by Heavy Seas Brewing Company
Style: English Strong Ale
Baltimore, Maryland USA

Serve in English pint, Snifter

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Really impressed with this guy. Nice copper/amber with small white head. Aromas of orange and pine. Bitter and smooth. Great product, could drink it all year round.

Love this and look forward to it every season. Complex and different it pours nicely and has a full taste that doesn’t disappoint. Not a powerful aroma... but not absent either. Great with smoky cheeses or Italian food. It’s not a crippling ice storm until you drink this by the soothing sounds of your generator. At 7.3abv this can also be used to take the edge off holiday relative visits.

UPDATED: FEB 12, 2008 Dark copper/amber color with a beige head. Mild citrus and pine hop aroma. Flavor of citrus hops and caramel malts.

12 oz bottles. Browish orange with a small head. Nice and hoppy with some english tasting malts. Flavors of peach, ash and pineapple all followed with a rich but not sweet caramel smoothness. Lively and peppery.

Grainey malt and lively aroma, a bold carmel malt and hop initial taste, followed by a wonderful hop bitterness at the end, the hop taste and bitterness get a little more prominent as yo go along,excellent brew

Bottle. From Anne and Daniel Christmas 2007. Great aroma of sweet fruitcake and malty pineapple. Sweet strawberry comes through as well. This is a darker tan, almost auburn color and the silky mouthfeel is topped only by its wonderful flavor. Bold and full of life, but still not overpowering. This is a wonderful beer and it’s been a while since I have had one of those. Top notch work on this one. Hops are spicy and biting with a nice fuzzy finish. Great brew!

I live in the Atlanta, Georgia metropolitan area, a place where until recently domestic micro-brewed beer was slim pickings. Oh how the things have changed. This week two new DIPAs entered the market at the same time. And curiously they are from the same brewery. The Clipper City Loose Cannon is a year around offering, while the Winter Storm will come ashore once a year. I had to pick them both up, to see what all this was about. The Loose Cannon was reviewed first yesterday, and here comes the Winter Storm, a Category 5 Ale.

The blue label on a 12 oz. bottle was in the standard style of Clipper City. The beer poured out dark reddish amber, with total clarity, and a beige colored head. The carbonation appeared steady and natural. The aroma was not very hoppy at all. Smelled more like a toned down English Barleywine, with brown sugar like malt being predominant. The hops seemed to be those of spicy and earthy English variety. The taste proved hoppier than the smell, with s strong herbal hop bitterness, backed by thick dark malts with a nutty sweetness. The body felt thicker than it looked with an Old Ale like stickiness, and noticeable warmth. There was a citric sourness coming through at warmer temperature.

I found the contrast between this and the sister beer quite striking. Both clock in at identical 7.5 percent ABV, but the similarities end there. The Loose Cannon is more heavily carbonated, light, highly aromatic, rather citric tasting, and not too bitter. The Winter Storm is none of these things. Maybe if I was to make a 50/50 mixture, I’d get a classic DIPA.

Tap at my favorite restaurant. Big hazy orange-amber glass, with small head and subtle hop aroma. Huge hop flavor, quite bitter, but pleasant. A great beer, but almost too bitter, but smoothes as you get towards the bottom of the glass. A great beer.

12oz bottle. pours amber/brown with nice tan head. very hoppy smells. medium body, malty and super hoppy. finishes slightly sweet. a rich beer, very worthy of the cool label and apt name.

Dec. 2006 - Beer poured dark amber color with nice head and decent lacing, too. Aroma was strong piney hops. Flavor was a nice balance of sweet malts and piney hops with a detectable alcohol flavor which was nice. Another solid beer from Clipper City!