Paper City Winter Palace Wee Heavy

12/29/08 - 12 oz. bottle via trade with Ty, split with Naka. Pours dark amber with cream, small, quickly dissipating head. Nose is caramel and toffee, maybe some brown sugar and cherry, just a touch of smoke. Lots of malt. Caramel and toffee, touch of chocolate. Some fruit, light i nthe background, cherry and plum. A very dry finish. Pretty decent.

Courtesy of Juart. Pours a deep burgundy color with a very small cream-colored head and pretty good lacing. Aroma of tart cherries, caramel, and maybe even some nutmeg for good measure. Really nice balanced flavor. Caramel and toffee with a dry and slightly bitter finish. Average body, but an overall good impression.

Bottle from Santa. Poured a clear ruby-copper color with faint vestiges of off-white head. Thick malty aroma of wet barley, smells like it’s trying to get peaty, but it’s not there. The taste is pretty basic and reminiscent of a regular Scottish ale. Malty and straightforward.

Pours a dark mahogany with a small white-beige head. Aroma of candied malts, cotton candy and wet rotting wood. Taste is slightly woody with a candy malt presence. Nice overall.

Pours with a frothy, one-finger thick, dirty-tan colored head. The beer sits in my glass with a concentrated, burnt amber color, but shows an absolutely brilliantly clear, ruby hue to it when held up to the light. Huge toasted bread aromatics are found in the nose, it smells like pure biscuit malt. Wheat cracker aromatics a touch of grassy grain character and just a hint of sweet, caramelized malt. I am really surprised how lacking the aroma is in the sweet, caramelized malt character, but the huge, dry, toasty grain notes are quite interesting.

Lightly sweet, with a light-medium heft to it. The beer is pretty well attenuated and finishes with a toasty malt character as well as a touch of astringent roast grain flavors. What lingers on in the mouth is a big, slightly astringent, toasted (almost burnt) cracker like malt character and a touch of herbal hop bitterness. While this does have a light sweetness to it, the beer is fairly dry overall. Hints of berry like malt character and a clean, grain sweetness peek through the huge toasted grain character here.

This tastes like a combination of Pale malt and some dark, roast malt, which is perfectly traditional for a Wee Heavy. This seems to be missing a complexity of malt character that I, personally like to find in these types of beers. I do like that huge toasted grain character and even the simple malt approach; this certainly sets this beer apart, but a focus on a bit more kettle caramelization / concentration would make for a much more interesting beer. This is actually a fairly straight forward beer, which can certainly be nice at times.