Wassail
McNeill's Brewery

On Tap at Mcneill's on 1/4/07

AP: A raw-clover honey color with a thin and white head that dissipated very quickly, but there is a constant white foam rim around the edge.

Nose: Very interesting...It's massivly herbalized with cloves, nutmeg, spices, honey...reminds me very much of a Pumpkin Ale.

Taste: This is a highly spiced and herbalized malted flavor with cinnemon and nutmeg sweetness and a slight pepper taste.. I rather enjoyed this off-balanced brew. The hop ending brings a nice cloves and herbalized flavor that ends up tasting leafy green. This would be a good beer to suggest to herbal tea drinkers.(seriously)

MF: Light body, dry and peppery feel on the palate, goes down sticky,

DA: I actually rather enjoyed this weird brew from Ray.

This beer poured a clear, copper color with light tan colored foam that settled to a thin coat in the pint glass. The smell was cinnamon and spices together with malt. The taste was spices, cinnamon and cloves, and malt with a hint of caramel and a faint touch of butter. The mouthfeel was smooth and creamy with medium body and moderate carbonation. A light taste of spices and sweet malt lingered in the finish. This winter warmer was a nice, spiced winter ale.

Jan. 2006

Pours a cloudy orangish amber with decent amount of white head. Average sort of level of dissapation. Averagish stickage as well.

Smells- hop essence, ginger, medium to light malt notes.

Tastes- ginger comes out fairly strong which I found to be a good amount though- not too much, just about right. The hops are fairly prevalent in this one. They go straight for the taste buds and assualt them like the spanish armada. They do this kind of like an IPA would.

Carbonation is adequate. Decent drinkability. Could go for some more spices other than the ginger alone to complicate the flavor. If they were there I couldn't taste them.

Picked up a few bottles at McNiell's after having a pint of it from the tap. As soon as you crack open the bottle, the room fills with fresh ginger aroma. Someone asked if it was soda I was drinking. Pours with a lively head which is rare from a McNeill's bomber. Slighlty cloudy body from the bottle with a off-white head. You are bombarded with fresh ginger and orange peel flavors up front which is gradually taken over by sweet malt and grassy hop flavors. Nutmeg like spices are subtle and are not annoying.Seems a little dull when compared to the tap version, bust still a tasty spiced beer that you can drink pint after pint without getting cloying.

Pours a cloudy red-brown (I'll call it weathered mahogany), two finger tan head, laced only spottily.
The aroma is full of spruce and cinammon, nutmeg, ginger and other spices you'd use when baking Christmas cookies. Too over the top in the spicy aroma. But it gets worse in the taste.
Pine sap and cinammon taste, brown sugar, very bitter, again those spices appear, sticky sweet.
Medium body, but the spicing is overwhelming. Needs work or aging.

Pours a cloudy brown amber with a short lacey head. Nice and malty with a hefty spice base to flavor it up. Hops add some bite at the end, but are overshadowed by the spices. Quite tastey, but the balance is not quite there. A little bit of tweeking and this would be a great beer instead of an average beer.

The similarity between this and my homebrewed braggot are striking. The spice is big on the nose and upfront in the taste, but it fades instantly to a watery blandness by the middle. I wonder if this is a braggot as well since the flavor is so overwhelmingly similar. I do get a little honey out of this. I'd kind of like a bit more malt to support the spice and provide a little more flavor.

Presentation: 12oz brown bottle with a glued on photo-copied label. No bottled on date.

Appearance: Pours a cloudy amber beer (bottle-conditioned) with a healthy foam/cream head. Good retention and stick.

Smell: Massive ginger aromas, orange/citrus, nutmeg and cinnamon. Smells like a potpourri steeping, but with a yeasty aroma in the background -- musty teat-like herbal, overall.

Taste: A fairly malty and sweet beer, smooth and even in that department. Then the spices kick-in and to the extreme. Ginger is very dominant and a tad spicey, like a mild Gari (sushi ginger) and complements then overpowers the malt profile. Mulled-orange flavours follow, with hints of nutmeg and cinnamon all over the palate. Quite herbally, too. Finish is gingery, with a touch of wet paper at the end and dryness.

Notes: I liked what Ray was trying to do with the ginger, but the spices stole the show and let loose one hell of an under-balanced beer. Good idea, poor execution.