Brooklyn Brewery - Winter Ale

Today I'm drinking a Winter Ale from Brooklyn Brewery in Utica, NY.  This is a seasonal Scottish Ale from Brooklyn with 6.1% alcohol and a hefty grain bill, straight-lined with Willamette hops.  I am not a fan of this style - Scottish Ales tend to make me cringe with their intense peaty, smoky malt flavors.  I also had a bad experience with a "heather-hopped" Scottish ale last year that left me with a negative association for all ales Scottish.  Kind of like that one liquor that you drank too much of in college, and just the smell of it now makes you gag....(mine was Captain Morgan).  Hopefully this Brooklyn brew can help break these negative psychological chains.

The beer is a dark amber color, clear, with a fluffy 2 inches of egg-white foam.  Not a whole lot of lacing left behind as it recedes.  The aroma is malt-forward with biscuits and bread dough, combined with a tart, grassy, herbal undertone.  The taste starts off with a nutty, bready malt characteristic.  Some earthy, herbal bitterness comes in almost immediately after that and takes this beer into a strange, farmhouse-ish realm.  Some spiciness comes in towards the end and dries things up a bit.  A hint of raisin also makes itself known, popping in and out randomly.   The texture is medium-bodied, with a higher-than-normal amount of carbonation keeping things bubbly.

Overall Rating:  Winter Ale is a mediocre beer from Brooklyn Brewery.  Certainly very drinkable, smooth, and some nice characteristics of the Scottish Ale style that I actually enjoyed.  But there was an underlying, earthy, almost dirty flavor that I had a hard time accepting.  Not great, but certainly a step in the right direction for me in terms of the style.  B-

Sierra Nevada - Celebration Ale 2010

Tonight is a very exciting night for me....tonight I get to review one of my favorite winter seasonals - the Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale! Sierra Nevada is one of those craft breweries that always seems to get it right, probably because the founder, Ken Grossman, is a damn genius. He studied chemistry and physics at California State University back in the 70's, and soon after opened up his own Home Brew Shop. After a couple years, he pieced together a brewery from salvaged dairy tanks and other big pieces of old shitty equipment - in those initial years he focused on using premium ingredients (including obscene amounts of quality hops), which they are known for now. They've stuck to their guns over the years, maintaining a lot of the same techniques and attention to quality (and shitloads of hops), and it shows - this Celebration Ale is a Sierra Nevada showcase - OK let's drink!

Statistics:
Alcohol (ABV): 6.8%
Bittering Hops: Chinook

Finishing Hops: Cascade and Centennial

Dry Hopping: Cascade and Centennial

IBUs: 65

Malts: Two-row Pale and English Caramel

Yeast: Top-fermenting Ale yeast

The bottle is red and festive - on top of the bottle is listed "Fresh Hop Ale". I like fresh hops, I like Ales, and I like festive things, this is a good start!

Pouring this brew into a pint glass - it pours with a nice copper hue, a bit cloudy but still looks clean, with a big frothy egg-white head. It smells very citrusy, kind of reminds me of that opening theme scene on Dexter, when he is cutting the orange and they show the citrus spraying all over the place. There's also some pine-cones in the nose, all very fresh.

My first drink of this brew makes me think of....wanting to take a second drink. It's like a masseuse on my palate, it hits all the right spots. First thing that comes through is a slightly sweet maltiness, but the hop-hulk loaded with oranges, grapefruits, and pine trees comes through immediately after that and body-slams my tongue. Kind of a bitter ending, but in a good way, with a little alcohol warmth to wash everything down.

Celebration Ale has a medium, smooth body that is almost creamy - carbonation is just right. The drinkability is outrageous and flat-out dangerous....

Overall Rating: Excellent (5.10 out of 6.00) This is a great, well-balanced American IPA that really hits the spot on the cold winter nights in this arctic tundra of a state. I don't typically think of IPA's as "winter warmers", but this beer fits in the category well with those big stouts and porters that are more commonly used for thawing. This 2010 edition is even better than the 2009, and that's a hard thing to do, the 2009 was pretty damn good. Pick up a 12-pack of this ASAP!