Stoked Winter Ale
Mt. Begbie Brewing Co.

 

Poured from a bomber into a snifter
L- Dark brown with a sunrise orange tinge. Decently bubbly with a thing off white head.
S- Nutmeg, caramel, cinnamon, and fruit. A bit underwhelming.
T- Caramel, chocolate, cinnamon, nutmeg a surprising amount of orange citrus, spice.
F- Nice and bubbly although it is too light for my liking.
O- I enjoy this more than Big Rock's winter offering but i think Granville Island's is the best. This beer lacks a real punch resulting in it being fairly boring.

 

650ml bottle - the second self-referential use of 'stoke' in this brewery's offerings. Ya know, because they're from Revelstoke, and all.

This beer pours a clear, medium orange-brick brown colour, with two fingers of puffy, loosely foamy, and bubbly tan head, which leaves some decent random coral atoll lace around the glass as it evenly sinks out of sight.

It smells of bready and doughy caramel malt, some earthy nutmeg, clove, and metallic cinnamon spice, faint dark orchard fruity notes, and some very subtle leafy and floral noble hop bitters. The taste is pithy grainy and bready caramel malt, a lesser edgy wheat cracker thing, some estery yeastiness, fairly muddled ginger, clove, and nutmeg spice, and more musty, leafy, and dead floral verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is fairly timid in its bored-seeming frothiness, the body an adequate middleweight, and mostly smooth, just a hint of holiday spice providing an edge to the occasion. It finishes off-dry, the faltering malt and spices locked in a dance of the dead.

Overall, this is one underwhelming winter spiced ale - and it ain't the spices' fault. No, it's the wan base malt, and unwelcome yeasty esters that do this one in. I was gonna take a jab at the tardy release schedule for this brew (the contents appearing to be more appropriate for pre-Yuletide), but, in the end, it just doesn't seem worth the effort. #notstoked