[BW] Beer Blog

Brewery: Bison Brewing
Style: Spiced Beer
BeerAdvocate.com Rating: 82
RateBeer.com Rating: 3.16 (57th percentile)

“Our spiced holiday porter is brewed with ginger, nutmeg, and a touch of cinnamon, yielding the aroma of fresh baked Gingerbread Men!” Once again we have a completely dead-on description of what you’re getting.

Before I get down to specifics let me just say that this brew is absolutely delicious. Very, VERY few brews leave me with a smile of pure contentment as much as this brew has.

Look - This porter pours a very dark brown that lets virtually no light through. It’s also very thick for a porter, which I absolutely love. Once poured you get a fairly small head that hangs out for a decent amount of time.

Smell - This beer smells like the holidays. From the very first whiff you recognize the nutmeg and cinnamon. I was excited the first time I smelled it because it smells like a treat.

Taste - If I were to tell you to brew me a beer that tastes like the holidays, this would be it. It tastes like an incredibly good porter combined with gingerbread. I’m not going to lie and say it’s just a hint of gingerbread because it’s not. This has a very strong emphasis on its theme and it pulls it off flawlessly.

After having about a dozen Fall/Winter seasonal ales so far this is hands down my favorite. There are so many uninspired seasonal beers out there right now and Gingerbread Ale completely breaks that trend. Not only did Bison make something completely unique, but they did it will all organic ingredients. Please do yourself a favor and pick this incredibly delicious and organic beer up at your local beer store. Bison Brewing did a magnificent job and if I gave out some sort of medal or award then you can bet your ass I’d be giving them one right now.

Edit: I almost forgot to mention that I had a successful food pairing. I made some home made applesauce and drank this while eating a bowl of it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. This stuff goes together perfectly with almost any dessert, especially holiday ones.

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Once again I have neglected this site too long. Recently I have had quite a few new beers and while I really am working on full reviews for a couple, here’s some quick thoughts on others:

Blue Moon Pumpkin Ale
I should have known better to pick this one up. Blue Moon is owned by Coors Brewing and guess what? This stuff tastes like Coors with some nutmeg tossed in! I swear you can seriously make this yourself for a lot cheaper just by buying an 18 pack of Coors and mixing in some nut meg. I honestly couldn’t finish this brew. Of all the meticulously hand-crafted and delicious seasonal brews out there, this is probably among the worst. In its defense I tip my hat to Coors for giving it a shot.

Calapooia Riverdog ESB
I tried this brew on tap at a local bar here and wow, it hit the style dead on. I really can’t say much more than if you want a delicious ESB and you live in the Corvallis/Albany area then do yourself a favor and give this a try. I’m really curious as to what else Calapooia has brewed up, so I may have to take a trip to their pub in Albany.

Dogfish Head Punkin Ale
A lot of people believe this to be the pinnacle of pumpkin ales and from what I’ve had I agree. According to the label this is “a full-bodied brown ale brewed with real pumpkin, brown sugar, allspice, cinnamon & nutmeg.” This is the most honest description of a beer I have ever read. It seriously tastes like their brown ale with a hint of pumpkin pie. If you want to try a pumpkin ale then do yourself a favor and pick up a bottle of this. The only thing I have to say negative about it is for some reason it got kind of hard to drink towards the end.

That’s all I got for now, but I promise I’ll have reviews for Deschutes Jubelale 2006 and Bison Brewing’s Gingerbread Ale up within the next couple of days.

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