Avalon Spiced Ale
Two Brothers Brewing Company + Tap House

 

 

 

 

This beer poured out as an amber looking color, there wasn't a ton of head on this brew at all. The lacing was kind of nonexistent. The smell of the beer is of pure apple cider and some cinnamon. I really enjoyed the aroma this brew had. The taste of the beer brings that apple flavor along onto the tongue. The aftertaste is spicy. The mouthfeel is a little watery. Overall I'm a little bummed to see this has been retired. I wanted to try it again this fall. Maybe I'll find some on a dusty shelf somewhere.

This brew was a part of the NEPA Beer Club's big Stockertown AKA Shangy's split. It looks....interesting

Appearance: Poured from the bottle into my DFH Chalice, this brew is a deep, rich, cloudy mahogany brown. It has a slightly cloudy, unfiltered kind of look to it, almost like fresh apple cider from a local orchard. Not that crap you buy in a supermarket, but the good old-fashioned non-pasteurized stuff. Plenty of head on top of the brew, at least an inch and a half. The foam fades pretty quick down to about a centimeter, where it suddenly changes it's mind and decides to hang around for a while. I'll admit, it looks pretty good.

Smell: I can think of no better way to describe the nose of this brew other than a slightly toned down alcoholic apple cider with maybe a bit of cinnamon tossed in.

Taste: I can still get a little of the apple cider quality, but I don't think it's really meshing well overall. There's a bit of classic cider spice, some cinnamon and possibly some nutmeg, but it's very moderate.

Mouthfeel: It has good carbonation and a nice light to medium body.

Drinkability: Not a big fan of this brew. It's not awful, if you like this type of beer it would be worth trying...it's just not really for me.

Split a bomber; poured into a flute.

A: Pours a lazy copper with a two finger head.

S. Smells like apple cider. There is a hint of hops and cinnamon stick in the back as well.

T: Tastes like apple cider. The hops are barely there and the spices are present. Has a bit of breadiness as well.

D: Drinkability is good. It drinks more like juice than beer, but there is still a lot of beery flavours in here.

Overall: Not bad, but not my cup of tea. This is a bit on the sweet side, so it might be perfect as a "girly drink" but It feels a little unbalanced for me and I wouldn't drink it every day. That being said, I'd love to try some cheese pairings with this.

Part of the recent NEPA BC split.

Pours a clear reddish copper color with two plus inches of tan head. Head is pretty thick and settles slowly, doing a decent job of coating the glass as it falls and retaining a thin but pretty full lace when it's done.

At first whiff this smells somewhat tart and very much like a lot of wild ales smell. As it opens up a bit more it is clearly an apple cider aroma, slightly tart but not sour or wild. There's a bit of spice there too; I don't know what spices they used but there's an earthy aroma and a hint of cinnamon.

Taste also features an apple cider flavor, slightly tart like the nose was. It's not very sweet at all; the fermentation took care of most of the residual sugar here. In the finish there is a good deal of spicing that gets quite bitter actually; very earthy and peppery. Does have a cinnamon quality to it but it's got a bite as well.

Mouthfeel is a very crisp medium body with good carbonation. Quite dry in the finish although it's a little bit chalky as well. Just sort of a weird texture left on the palate.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this one. Never heard of it and the bottle was pretty dusty; last review was 11 months ago, so the dust makes sense. I was expecting a potential disaster but really it's not bad. Cider characteristics make for a pretty unique beer. If not for the spicy bite in the finish it'd be pretty drinkable too. Not too shabby.

Split a bomber with the lovely lady, themedievalist. I knew she couldn't pass up a beer called "Avalon." Poured into the glass a clear, fizzy amber with a small bright white head. No lacing, though the head sticks around for a while.

The smell is of natural, fresh apple juice. Not what I'm looking for in a beer, but I can't deny how good it really smells. Some clove and a bit of funk come through as it warms. The smell is the strongest quality here. The taste is mainly apple, unsurprisingly, but it's a little dank and musty. There's also clove and some white bread present. Lack of balance makes the sweetness a bit much.

The mouthfeel is light, and the tartness of the apple leads to puckering. This is all fine, but the carbonation is DOA. Some prickling, active carbonation could have made this beer better. I knew that this beer wouldn't be for me, but I tried to give it a fair shake. Doubt I'll touch it again.

Shared a bomber with my boyfriend. I generally like trying fruit-flavored beers, and this was a limited edition, so I figured it was worth a try.

A - Reddish-gold color, reminiscent of amber, with a light, creamy head and a small amount of lacing. Nice enough, but nothing too special.

S- Basically smelled exactly like apple cider. Not a lot of subtlety there. It took some time for the spices to come out - some hints of clove and cinnamon.

T- I felt as though the apple flavor melded better with the malt and alcohol than in some other fruit-flavored ales I've tried. Like the smell, it improved as the beer warmed a bit (I probably had the first sip when it was a bit too cold). Definitely a good example of what it was, but I think the whole bomber would have been a bit much.

M- Light and fizzy; pleasant enough.

D- Very refreshing and enjoyable, but as I said, I'm not sure how much I'd want to drink at once, or whether it would be my first choice if I saw it again.

Overall - I enjoyed it, but I don't think it's anything too special.

22oz. bomber into snifter on 12/17/09.

A - Poured a very effervescent orange/amber body with one-finger bubbly beige head that retained quite well despite leaving no lacing around the glass.

S - Initial aroma combines apple pulp with subtle spices, rendering Avalon more cider-esque than beery. Fleshy sweet fruit and caramel malt dominates the nose, followed closely behind by a potpourri of winter spices.

T - Flavor features apples quite prominently, but with a spicy flair. A bready malt character emerges in the backend paired with some sweet caramel notes. Ultimately, this reminds me of a liquid version of a caramel candy apple with cinnamon sprinkled on top.

M - Effervescent with a light syrupy texture and quite spicy and crisp on the palate. Finishes with subtle alcohol warmth and moderate bitterness on the tongue.

D - I enjoyed this beer/cider hybrid quite a bit. The subtle spicy character and predominant apple attributes makes for a tasty holiday treat.

Bomber. Says that it can be enjoyed hot and cold, so I will try both. Looking at the review dates, I have to assume this is pretty old. Actually, it's held up well.

Ample carbonation led to a large head of thousands of identical bubbles. Fast moving carbonation in the beer keeps it going, retaining well in the tulip glass. Darker color than I expected. A mildly dark golden amber. Foams up nicely with each swirl. Looks great. Leaves a complete sheet down the sides of the snifter I used for the hot beer.

Incredibly potent smell of apples, as one would expect. Very much like apple juice. No notes of artificiality. Spices are a bit tougher to find. When hot, very fragrant. More malt and some more definition in the spices would be nice.

Apple pie, without the crust. Sweetness to start, like red apple. Sort of hard to examine because the beer just dissolves in the mouth. Was hoping for a little more tartness. Not really much at all to be found. A bit of almost raw doughy yeastiness and overripe apple in the back end. Whenever a beer is made with spices, someone always jumps in and calls it a spice bomb, but I'd have a hard time seeing it with this beer. I'd have to think cinnamon is lightly used, along with nutmeg, as the predictable candidates. The malt flavor is really understated for a beer this strong. I expected a richer caramel presence, but it's very much in the background. More malt is keeping this from capturing the apple pie essence that would make this a real hit.

Incredibly soft and lively from the busy carbonation. Very light. When Duvel comes to mind, the mouthfeel is good. Really, really masks the 7.7%. By the second pour and beyond, definitely becomes a bit more normal.

For the lightness of feel, it really fills the stomach and was a surprisingly slow drinker for me. I suppose the effervescence led to much smaller sips. Tasty and enjoyable. It's not any better or worse hot; it's still fine. I think if it were sweeter, or more tart, it would work better as a hot beverage. I only had about 3-4 oz. hot, and then went back to it slightly chilled. At this point, I think I may have been enjoying the 7.7% more than the beer, so it went down quite well. Would have been okay with this as a smaller serving too, or as a nightcap. If you see any in the store still, don't be afraid. I can't imagine age has done any real harm.

Glossy kumquat orange with a ridiculous amount of carbonation. The pastel golden crown filled more than half the pint glass after a fairly gentle pour. Although the initial pour was merely so-so, subsequent pours resulted in a better looking head and much more lace. If chunks of sticky foam can be compared to lace.

The nose is exactly as advertised: apples and spices. More power would have been great, but time and warming seems to have remedied that shortcoming as well. There can't be too many apple cider-added ales out there. The spices are a tough call. Maybe the buds will be more successful when it comes to identification. Or least reasonable guessing.

Avalon is a decent effort that suffers from being too thin and too carbonated. Those are characteristics (mistakes really) that often go together. A maltier, sweeter, creamier beer would have been a much better beer. Who knows, maybe that's what the Brothers were shooting for.

There's nothing wrong with the amount and quality of the apple flavor. It tastes natural rather than artificial. The spices taste like a combination of cinnamon, nutmeg (or allspice) and clove. Ginger and black pepper aren't appreciated and wouldn't have worked anyway. This really isn't bad beer in the end.

The body/mouthfeel settles down (a little) and fills out (a little) as the ounces pass. More attention to detail here, which means better quality control, almost certainly would have resulted in increases to both taste and drinkability scores.

Two Brothers have a potential winner in Avalon Spiced Ale. The idea is a good one, it's just that the execution (in this bomber at least) is somewhat flawed. As far as the future goes, I'm intrigued enough to buy another bomber from another batch.

Found a bottle of this in New York. Amber, one-two finger head. A smell of sour apple, a little musty. Slightly foamy mouthfeel first reveals an apple taste quickly washed away by an earthy cinnamon finish.

Personnally, I found this less than pleasant, but I am not a big fan of cinnamon, which I found too overpowering in this.

The beer pours a nice amber color with a thick frothy offwhite head that slowly fades to lacing. The aroma is decent. It has a solid pilsner malt scent along with a wonderful aplle cider and spice aroma. It's different, but good. The taste is average. It has a very dry cider taste with a bit of spice and crystal malt added. It has a moderate tartness to it along with a slight earthy feel. The mouthfeel is average as well. It is a full bodied beer with too much CO2. This is an interesting beer, but I'm not too crazy with the carbonation. Also, it's extremely dry.

Poured a nice amber color with bright white foamy head.

Definite smell of apple cider. Nice apple smell with a hint of cinnamon.

Has a nice apple taste to it, with hints of cinnamon, clove, and maybe a touch of orange peel. Crisp with some tartness, almost like a hard cider.

Mouthfeel is light and carbonated.

Definately interesting. I split a bottle with the wife, and she really liked it. I found it enjoyable. Probably not something I'd buy regularly, but would definately get again. I definately recommend it for anyone who likes cider.

22oz bomber, split with the lady while making dinner

appearance: poured into a nitty mug, amber-orange body with a full frothy white cap

smell: apple cider, autumnal, a touch metallic, light malt structure

taste: interesting beer...apple cider, nutmeg, cinnamon, a touch of oak,clove, white pepper blood-rust offness unfortunately in the aftertaste...ok but not my fav two brothers effort

mouthfeel: medium, creamy

drinkability: ok

22oz Bomber
$5.99
Binny's, Orland

I picked a couple of these up before Christmas and this was the last in the fridge. Avalon happens to be an ale brewed with apple cider and spices. The body of this hybrid is crystal clear and shows the color of tarnished copper that's polished when backlit. A hard pour brought about a dishwater white head that settled to a swirling with a thin collar of foam. A little spot of foam sticks here and there but there's not much besides.

I thoroughly enjoy the nose on this unique concoction and it seemed to fit in well around Christmas. There's not a whole lot of "ale" in this spiced cider as far as the nose lets on but what's there brings some caramel sweetness that sits in the back. Lush red apples leap from the glass with candied orange peel, nutmeg, and cinnamon all showing signs of life. From the smell of things this may be better warmed slightly. It really is just like a spiced cider, warming.

I'd like this to taste like it smells but it just doesn't work out that way. The apples are there right off the bat but are quickly surpassed by the ale qualities. Unfortunately, the ale qualities aren't the best. An off sweetness shows up, like rotten apples (from the ale not the cider) and an off putting rubber flavor that sucks the enjoyment out of each drink. As somewhat of a redeeming quality the crisp cider makes a moderate showing on the swallow with a touch of sweetness. The spices are nowhere to be found.

The mouthfeel fits what the flavors should be. The body has some lightness to it while the carbonation is moderate but soft. Each drink leaves behind a touch of slickness on the tongue.

The drinkability is low to say the least. I'm going to finish this bomber but it's going to take some work on my part. What can I say? I'm a trooper!

I enjoy most of Two Brothers brews and all most all of their Artisan bottlings but this cider/ale missed the mark. They would have been better off filling this bomber with the cider than adding the ale as well. It's not awful but it's not one I would pick up again.

Picked up a single 22oz. bottle at Abe's in Bethlehem. Poured into my shaker glass and appears a clear golden amber color with about a finger of off-white foam. Smells of fresh pressed apple cider, mulling spices such as nutmeg, mace, cinnamon, and possibly allspice. Great aroma, mouthwatering even. Taste is unique and pleasant. Flavors of caramel malt and bread are in the forefront, quickly followed by red and green apples, spicy black pepper, nutmeg and a hint of cinnamon. Spiced caramel apples anyone? Medium in body with medium to moderate carbonation. Much thanks to Two Brothers for taking a stab at brewing such a unique and tasty beer/cider. I look forward to it's return next season.

Beautiful, amber body with a decent enough head which, unfortunately, dies a quick death.

Can you say spiced cider? Since the style overall doesn't really offer any aroma guidelines I'm just going off what the brewers were shooting for. "Ale brewed with locally-pressed apple cider and spices." It couldn't smell any more dead-on than that. Dessert in my nose.

Wow! Super weird. Big apple cider up front knocked down almost immediately by an intensely rich malt body. Spices (clove & cinnamon) linger awkwardly combining with a somewhat cloying sweetness for a rather messy finish.

Carbonation is rightly understated for something from the English tradition. Slightly slick on the finish. Overall, not a fun one to drink. This will go along with the Heliocentric Braggot as a cool but perhaps overambitious idea from Jim & Jason. Still, for every miss these guys crank out 3 killers, so I hope they don't try toning down anytime soon.