Wisconsin Cranberry Special Ale

Brewed by Sand Creek Brewing Company
Style: Fruit Beer
Black River Falls, Wisconsin USA

Serve in Flute, Shaker

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Found this one on the close out aisle. Cost a Dollar. Might have been over priced. Aroma was of an ale but with some kind of sour smelling fruit. Maybe i was cranberry, maybe not. Flavor was consistent throughout, but it was pretty bad. Can’t fault it on the mouth feel. That part was decent. There was a reason it was on the close out aisle.

12z bottle. Hazy, amber hue with golden yellow edges. Burnt corn aroma. Musty, like an old furnace. Flavor is sweet cranberry ice tea. Good initial mouthfeel, that evolves into a tart, puckering sticky mess!

Subdued aroma, some tart fruit. Sweet-tart flavor, syrupy and cloying. First drain-pour in a long time for me.

UPDATED: JAN 9, 2006 Aww, nuts. I had high hopes for this brew. Other brews I’ve had from Sand Creek have been really good. First off, let me say that it isn’t bad--it’s just not great. From a bottle, it poured a fizzy-looking reddish amber with a quickly diminishing head. Faint cranberries in the aroma, along with more usual grainy beer smells. First taste is instant-on cranberries with a thin malt background. Then I got an almost immediate sour followup that tasted for all the world like alum (yes, alum, the stuff your granny used to put in pies for added "tartness"). Rather thin bodied and overcarbonated from my perspective. Interesting brew, but not my favorite in this category.

12 oz bottle obtained from the Mecca of Wisconsin micros, Woodmans on Gammon Road in Madison (Oct 2005). Fluffy lasting white head with the faintest hint of pink topping a dark, hazy reddish-amber body...subtle sour fresh cranberry in the nose, not at all sweet and syrupy like others, though there isn’t much else besides the fruit except the faintest of grassiness...tart, refreshing body with a reasonable amount of fruit and a light but firm malty backdrop, faint grassy hop bitterness, a nice zest all the way through the finish...I liked this a whole lot more than most, either the recipe has changed since last year’s model or I’m just a softie for cran action.

UPDATED: OCT 28, 2009 Gitchee Gumee Brewfest 2005. I would have expected a more enticing aroma from a fruit beer, but it wasn’t there, instead a light tangy wasp drifted up. The flavors were nice, dominated by a very strong plain wine flavor and finishing with a sugary port complex. Interesting.

UPDATED: JUL 7, 2005 I like cranberries, drink the juice, eat the sauce... but there’s no trace of that fruit here. A dirty amber drink, flat, and nigh unto headless, this beverage has a berry aroma, but I don’t recognize it. It’s sweet in a near cloying way and that sweetness overrides any other flavors that may be present. It finished with a saccharine-like coating of the tongue. My first and last of these...

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UPDATED: APR 24, 2010 Got this out of the bargain cart at Sam’s so bear in mind this might not be fresh. It’s a nice reddish brown color with a foamy head of large bubbles. Nose is sweet with a twinge of sourness and a hint of tobacco (interesting considering heemer77 noted it tasted like Swisher Sweets). You can tell this was brewed with concentrate rather than whole fruit, the taste is over sweet and artificial. (I noted this before I looked at the commercial description, by the way). Really just very sweet and cloying. I think I detect a hint of NutraSweet or some other artificial sweetness. No good.

Rerate: Go this a second time not realizing I’d already tried it and didn’t like it. This bottle was fresh and it’s still pretty bad. Clear orange brown w/ a very slightly pinkish head or maybe I’m just imagining things. Nose is mild malts and a twinge of cranberry. Same w/ the flavor. Some tartness in the finish comes off as out of place. Pretty standard issue crummy fruit beer. 2.0 rating stands but categories are adjusted.

Got the bottle for a dollar at Sam’s in Chicago. A nice amber body with a thin head. Lots of bubbles clung to the side of the glass. Aroma is full and bready with a hint of mild cranberries. the taste is like Swisher Sweet cigars with some cherries. No cranberry in the flavor. Very sweet. This would make an alright summer beer.

Had this bottled. Nose of cranberry and citrus, thin head, golden amber color. Tastes tart, finishes slightly hoppy but sweet. Couldn’t have many of these but a good onesie.