Winter Warmer
Smoky Mountain Brewery & Restaurant

 

This is a really smooth beer.
Like the name says... it is a warmer on a cold day.
Nicely done.

 

 

 

Incredibly smooth, robustly flavored and built for the holidays. Its sweeter tone is perfect for holiday candies, glazes and especially those honey-baked hams. This distinguished ale highlights Christmas dinner to perfection!

As the ale pours, it simply takes on richer and sturdier appearances. Its clear but dark garnet hue casts ribbons mahogany through its brilliant clarity. A light khaki colored head builds upon the beer and shows tremendous staying power and laces the glass with broken rings in the beer's wake.

Its burst of aromas span the gamut from caramel, toffee and brown sugar to pulled candy, hard candy and toasty-sweet barley grains. Its succulent flavors are blended with fruity flavors of apples, dates, figs, raisins, plumbs and cherries- basically the dark and dried fruits that are common to fruit cake find themselves manifested in this ale's flavor. Couple that with the biscuit and bready richness of malt and the ale further seems fruit cake-like. A late charge of spiced rum balances the fruit and sweet taste as its finish is lightly of hearty sorghum and cola nut.

Boldly textured, the ale retains its bready firmness early and often. Largely unyielding until the spicy alcohols offer tepid dryness- allowing the ale to linger long on the palate and further reward the taste buds with its savory sweetness. With little in the way of hops- the ale is malt-balanced and warm to finish.

Smoky Mountain's Winter Warmer enlivens the sweet tooth with a plethora of malt flavors that easily replaces eggnog as that after dinner Christmas digestive. Its a well-done Winter Ale and among one of Smoky Mountain's best!

 

 

This beer is the winter seasonal brew being served at Smokey Mountain Brewery in Turkey Creek, Knoxville. It's a Bock style beer, a dark beer with roasted malts and a heavy taste but not as heavy as their porter or stout. It's a bit sweet, and I enjoyed this taste. The combination of the dark grain and sweetness I thought worked well. I bought a growler to share with my son this weekend.
I love Calhoun's beers especially the seasonals at Smokey Mountain. I've tried all the beer places in Knoxville and no matter what type beer you like, you just can't beat Calhoun's for both the quality of the beer and price.
I saw in the listing for this beer that it had been discontinued, but I had it today at Smokey Mountain.
Bill
12/22/12

light brown in appearance. Smell is very much that of a winter warmer, good hints of spices. Mouthfeel is clean and it leaves the mouth well. Taste is full of spices and a good hoppy flavor. Overall this was a well brewed beer and the flavors play well with each other. We feel this is a good beer to have anytime you are at the Smoky Mountian Brewery. Good seasonal beer.

 

A - Crystal clear, dark copper. One-finger, eggshell head. The head dies quickly but leaves some decent lacing.

S - Sweet, nutty. Smells like it has some maris otter. Nuts and toast. Fairly faint aroma but it's promising.

T/M - Medium-heavy bodied, and very smooth, with just enough carbonation to keep things moving. The flavor starts off mildly sweet and nutty. Malty and cloying in the middle. The hops make their appearance toward the end with an earthy bitterness that balances the malt and sticks around for the finish.

D - A solid performance but the beer seems to be playing safe without any detectable spices or phenols. It almost tastes like an ale brewed at lager temperatures. I will order another one though. Actually, I'll order one right now.

I look forward to this Winter Warmer production every year. This beer never fails. They produce fall-ish every year and continue through the winter months. It is a high ABV beer that has so much flavor it is hard to describe. Can you tell I like it yet? Anyway, caramel, spice, cookies, bread, warm grain, just a lot of goodness. Have to try this if you are in the East Tennessee area near one of their many restaurants from Nov - Jan.

Appearance: Pours out a clear, humble-looking, brown body with a woefully thin, short-lived head. A rather dull look, I must say.

Smell: Let's have a sniff! Smells of simple toast, fire-licked nuts, cocoa, and an open box of Sun-Maid raisins.

Taste: Essentially, what you smell is what you get in the taste, with a follow-through of toasted bread given a light dusting of sweetish cocoa powder. Slight nuttiness throughout. Background dark fruitiness. Very mild bitterness. Drying finish.

Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied. Light carbonation.

Drinkability: Never exceeds being merely 'okay'. The relatively light body and carbonation leaves this one feeling a bit lean in the mouth. Can we get some melanoidin malt up in this?

*Notes from Fratlinburng, TN trip to Smokey Mountain Brewery*

Pours a light ruby/brown color with some lacing of tannish head.
Smell is spiced well but definitely not a powerful smell.
Taste is strong with bread and spiced flavor a small amount of sweet fruit of some kind on it's front end.
Finish is wet, a light after-taste of sweet malt and some bread.
Drinks ok- at times it is weak sauce-

A - Clear dark brown with a red hue with small white head.

S - Fruity and slighty spicy but little aroma.

T - Fruity and spicy with sweet malt and a bit of bready malt.

M/D - Light mouthfeel, relatively drinkable, but there are far better options in the style.

Two pints from the brewpub in Knoxville. It pours a beautiful amber-red with a decent head that slowly disappears. Sadly my first one was in a frosted pint glass. (Maybe to reinforce the "winter" part of the beer?) The aroma was caramel malt and slight spicing. The beer reminds me more of a strong Red with it's caramelly flavor and noticable hopping. I didn't detect any spices save maybe some orange peel. You can detect a bit of alcohol warming after each drink mixing in with the malty aftertaste. Definitely the best beer I've had from Smoky Mountain Brewery.

A - Pours a deep amber to light brown color with nice highlights or red. Pours with very little head and little to no lacing

S - Has a nice malty smell with a hint of cinnimon/nutmeg possibly and a bready smell

T - A very full malty taste of bread and spices along with a hint of toffee

M - Very thick and rich actually. Coats the entire mouth

D - A very nice warmer and very enjoyable to drink. The ABV is actually around 10% so it goes well as a nightcap type of drink

Sampled at the brewery's Sevierville location. A nice example of the style. The brewer may have taken to heart the critique in johnrobe's earlier review that it was too light, because this certainly seems to have been beefed up, and worthy of the winter warmer designation. Dark chestnut with some bready, spicy notes in the aroma. Nice, solid mouthfeel with substantial malt - caramel and toffee, and the hops were well balanced. Landed somewhere between an ESB and barleywine. They must have bumped up the ABV, because the server said they weren't allowed to serve in the litre mugs, just the pints, and she thought it was about 8%. There was some alcohol bite in there.

Draught: This one pours a brownish dark amber color. Mine had very little head to it. I found the aroma to be a little thin, even after I let it warm up from its ice cold pour. I did get some spices and a bit of caramel malt to the nose. The taste came off as sweet. There was caramel malt sweetness to it, but it tasted overly sweet, almost like it had a half a spoon of sugar in it. There was a fair amount of spiciness and a hint of hops, but not near enough to cover up the sweetness. Just OK.