Snow Cave
Crux Fermentation Project

This beer is tasty but for a winter warmer not what the style normally is. Came off draft to be very much like a Tripel in aroma and taste. Color is more a Dubbel. Rather good but should be a Belgian winter warmer.

Sampled at the 17th annual HAF in Portland. I noticed in another ABV was 8% the program I have says 11% though the IBUs are the same. Don't remember anything about this beer other than the description makes it sound like it should have a smooth chocolate taste.
20 IBUs New can 7.2 ABV 40 IBUs

 

Bottle from Brewers Haven. Dark amber with one finger fluffy head. Sweet-ish aroma, molasses, gingerbread, roasty grains. Taste starts with the sweet notes, brown sugar, mild coffee cake. Stays sweet throughout. Warming without the burn.

500ml bottle - all it mentions on the label is the use of Belgian yeast, so I don't know what makes this a winter warmer.

This beer pours a clear, medium bronzed amber colour, with four fingers of puffy, loosely foamy, and bubbly tan head, which leaves some decent scattered spider web pattern lace around the glass as it evenly sinks out of sight.

It smells of bready and doughy caramel malt, earthy clove and black peppercorn spice, brown sugar syrup, some dark orchard fruitiness, and very plain leafy, herbal, and floral green hop bitters. The taste is gritty and grainy caramel malt, an edgy clove spiciness, candi sugar, estery Belgian yeast, and more well-understated earthy, musty, and dead floral hoppiness.

The carbonation is adequate in its palate-satiating frothiness, the body a solid middleweight, and generally smooth, with perhaps a touch of generic spice character taking things down a notch or so from the ideal here. It finishes off-dry, the malt fighting it out in the lingering state.

Overall - yeah, this certainly comes across more like a Dubbel than your traditional English warmer. I suppose that would inevitably be case, given the yeast selection, and this does have lots of pleasant flavour, so I suppose I shall stop splitting hairs.

 

 

500ml bottle

Pours almost two fingers of tan head into my tulip glass. Pillowy, even a little creamy looking. The body is a deep red, with hues of burgundy and mahogany. Small amount of bubbles coming up, from what I can see. Head retention is slightly above average. Overall it looks good so far.

The nose almost reminds me of a dubbel. Candy sugars, with notes of banana and clove. Very sweet smelling, but it certainly has character from the yeast, so I'm ok with it. Perhaps even some vanilla here as well. It's a wonderful smelling beer.

The flavor is very nice as well. Very similar to the aroma - you get that Belgian yeast, with banana, clove and sugar. The difference is that while it is sweet, it has a dry aspect to it as well. While not a huge aspect - it does have a present bitterness, which is surprising. Bitterness borders on sourness, which makes it airing on an off flavor. No bottling date, but I doubt this is an unintended flavor, or infection. It's not a big problem, but I'm not a huge fan of that character here. Other than that, the beer is great, super tasty.

The mouthfeel is nice. The carbonation is pretty soft, sitting a little below medium. Definitely not flat, it works well. The body has a good thickness to it. A bonus is that this does not stick with sugars to my mouth - as mentioned, it actually comes across relatively dry. Maybe just a hair of astringent booze in the finish.

The drinkability is quite high for an 8% beer. I don't expect all high gravity beers to hide their alcohol perfectly, with that being said, it would be nice - I can taste a tiny bit of it. Still, this beer is tasty and it doesn't stick to my mouth. The dryness certainly helps it's sessionability.

The appearance turned out pretty good. I got pretty good lacing on this guy, plus a head that lasted a good while. Good looking beer.

Overall this beer has a few minor hiccups, but overall it's very nice. Certainly drinks like a dubbel. Good beer.

 

 

Handsome appearance, the dark amber brew capped with swirls of foam in the Orval chalice. It's all very dark and spicy, quite malty and roasted tasting. But the nose is overwhelmed by this intense clove aroma.

The taste of cloves is also right up front. Being a winter beer I assumed they dosed it with the usual spices, but the weird yeasty taste takes over. And I read that it's made with Belgian yeast. I wonder if it's possible to get this intensity of esters, the clove, from yeast?

There are hints of raisin and licorice, but I can't get past that insinuating estery, clovey taste. Quite an interesting beer but not one to have more than a few sips before looking for the cap. From the 500 ml bottle purchased at Elizabeth Station.

 

Poured from 500mL bottle into a dimpled mug.

Appearance: medium brown hue with plenty of haze and a thick finger of frothy light-tan foam. It looks like a good example of the style.

Smell: sweet and very bready with a prominent yeastiness. Not necessarily bad, but not especially complex.

Taste: very sweet, yeasty, caramelly and bready; there's a modicum of bitterness at the end but nothing like what would be required to offset the sweetness. Toward the end, I get a bit of a soapy character, which, while not entirely unwelcome, doesn't complement the rest of the beer well. Not a bad beer, but it doesn't blow me away.

Mouthfeel: medium-rich body with a decent carbonation and creaminess.

Overall: this beer has some interesting parts: a caramel breadiness, a theoretically-balancing bitterness; however, it just doesn't come together super well. I don't hate it, but it's not spectacular.

Poured into a Fremont small snifter. Pours a medium to dark coppery amber with a half finger light khaki head with good retention and lacing. Aroma of candi and mildly caramel malt, hard candy, light lemon and banana; mild and semi-sweet. Flavor of grainy caramel malt with a hint of biscuit, cinnamon, cocoa and clove, finishes with nice clove semi-sweet grain. Medium bodied with light creaminess. The base ale has a strong Belgian feel to it, with clove and wheaty grain, with the cinnamon and clove expected in a winter ale. Really doesn't taste like anything I've had before, but like a milder version of the usually robustly flavored winter warmers. Lots of light hints of holiday flavors like cocoa in addition to the spicing. Seemed a little underwhelming at first compared to some of the really warming ales of the this style, but it tastes good and appropriate for the upcoming season. This would be a good choice for accompanying cookies and winter baked goods.

 

 

 

 

I'm not generally a fan of warmers. A strange statement given the variation within the style. This one caught me by surprise though. Lots of banana character, tasted like a nice weizenbock to me. Very good.