(bottle) A nice copper color with a decent head. Starts out a little bitter but has a sweet finish and aftertaste. Works out to be very well-balanced. Another winner from Juneau.

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(bottle) Beautiful dark amber color. Fantastic malty and spicy aroma. Fizzy mouthfeel. Flavor of wheat and yeast and apple peels. Fucking yummy.

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I spent the entire pint trying to decide (a) if I liked it or not, and (b) what the heck I was drinking. Apparently Anchor changes the recipe for their Christmas Ale each year, and they keep that recipe pretty secret. If I had to guess I'd say the best way to describe this year's version would be "smoky nutmeg" but I could be way off base about the nutmeg part. There was definitely some smoky something in there. At the end I decided I did like it, but more than one in a given session would probably be too much.

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(draft) Much more malty than last year's version. Also a little bit of a chocolately feel to it. Not my favorite but still quite drinkable.

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(draft) Pretty damn good. Higly malty, with a touch of coffee. No chocolate or licorice at all, but still a good beer.

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(draft) Dark ruby in color, almost black. Nice head and very nice lacing. Fruity and spicy aroma. Fairly thin and highly-carbinated mouthfeel. Flavor of tingly dark cherries, a little sour even. Finish is tingly. Better than decent, barely good.

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(draft) Cloudy dark brown. Minimal head, minimal aroma. Flavor this year reminds me of dark fruits and coffee. Tastes like it has more alcohol than it really does. I doubt I'll bother to have any more of this.

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(draft) I had high hopes for this one. Blueberry flavor in a beer would definitely be something new and unusual for me. This actually ended up being my least favorite beer of the weekend. It tasted to me like an IPA. If there was any berry component to the flavor it was too subtle for me to detect it behind all the damn hops.

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(bottle) Looked like grapefruit juice except for a huge white head. Citrusy aroma. Slight citrus flavor, but not so much that it became disgusting. Fizzy and other than that, a fairly mild flavor. Too many ingrediants in this beer, none stand out. It's a mish-mash.

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(draft) No aroma whatsoever. The first couple of sips reminded me more of cranberries than cherries. About halfway thourgh the glass I decided that it wasn't too bad and ordered another pint. A little sour, a little sweet. Really quite drinkable though.

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(draft) This might have been sweet and syupy or it might have been all the blueberries floating up and down. I couldn't finish the glass. Those things hitting my lips were just too strange.

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(draft) A light brown ale (think Newcastle) with a wedge of watermelon in it. Once I removed the offending fruit I couldn't detect anything noteworthy. Maybe a bit of a hoppy finish.

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(bottle) Clear bronze. Good head and lacing. I got hints of several spices and unusual flavors, most notably of vanilla. Very easy to drink. Very good.

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(draft) A very dark red. Bourbon aroma is very faint - almost not noticeable. The flavor is that of a very mild stout with only the slightest hint of bourbon showing up in the finish. Not too bad. Quite good actually. Yummy, in fact.

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(bottle) Color of dark hazy cola. No appreciable foam. A nice light vanilla aroma, and a very nice and smooth vanilla flavor. No undertones that I could detect. Finish was a little drying. Pretty damn good.

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(draft) Black. Large brown head with great lacing. A nice chocolately flavor behind the bourbon, which shows up mainly in the lingering finish. Pretty damn yummy.

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(draft) Lord, why hast thou foresaken me? I thought this was crap. I only drank about two sips and then I threw the rest away.

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(mixture) I mixed Bell's Cherry Ale and Young's Double Chocolate Stout in a 1-to-1 ratio. Just a fantastic combination. A nice deep red color. Chocolate flavor that's followed by a slightly sour finish. I'd definitely buy this if it was available commercially. Yummy.

(mixture) I mixed 1/2 Bells Cherry Ale with 1/2 BBC Dark Star Porter, and ended up with something greater than the sum of its parts. The too bitter porter balanced very nicely with the too sweet/sour Bells, and it was just excellent. I, apparently, am a frickin' genius.

(mixture) I mixed 1/2 NABC Tunnel Vision with 1/2 Rogue Smoke Ale. For whatever reason, I figured that the honey sweetness of the Tunnel Vision and the smoky bitterness of the Rogue Smoke would play off each other quite well. I was right. I would drink the stuff if it was available commercially.

(draft) Clear bronze. A thin tan head that faded quickly and left nice lacing behind. Besides the unusual (for me) pumpkin flavor, there was a strange bitterness that came and went before the finish. Once my tastebuds had become numb to the bitterness this was a pretty good beer.

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I was expecting something different, and perhaps even better, from this beer. What I got was, to me anyway, a bland, somewhat dirty tasting belgian. I certainly don't understand the hype.

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(draft) This really sucked.

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(draft) Had this a year ago and didn't see anything special about it. Had it again last night and really liked it a lot. I thought I detected roasted nutmeg but don't see that mentioned anywhere. Very much a Winter ale, and very much a good one.

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(draft) Highly recommended by all who'd had it at Rich O's. Definitely a Christmas Ale - all sorts of complex flavors. I thought the fruitiness was a little bit too much but I suppose it was needed to mask all of that alcohol.

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(draft) I've never been a big fan of oak aged brews, but the oak undertones of this are subtle enough that they're hardly noticeable. Just enough chocolate and coffee flavor to almost mask the alcohol burn, but not quite. Pretty good.

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Another winner from this excellent brewery. Very complex but well balanced. Starts out sweet, with a complicated blend of spices that I won't try to describe, followed by a surprising bit of cinnamon heat at the end. Nothing overpowering. Yummy.

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(draft) A nice spicy aroma that led to a fairly tame-tasting beer. There was a slight mustiness to it that didn't exactly thrill me. By the second half of the glass the head had dissipated so both the spice and the must had gone. What was left was good but not great.

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The web page says cinnamon and nutmeg. I got none of that. What I got was ambrosia. The most unusual beer I've ever had, and it took me a while to pin down what I was experiencing. Copper colored, good lacing, and an actual flower aroma. The flavor was incredibly indescribable, but I'll try anyway. Take a beautiful woman, have her bathe in lilacs and Mr. Bubble. Now perform oral sex on her. That's how good this beer was.

UPDATE 12/24/07: I've been able to have this in bottles recently. The aroma is as I remembered, the flavor is very good, but maybe not quite the orgasmic experience I remembered from before. Very much a session beer. One of my favorites.

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(draft) The first few sips, understandably, brought to mind a beer with ginger ale poured into it. By the end of the glass I'd decided that I did like this beer, and that I wished that it was even a little stranger than it was. Very unusual, and very drinkable.

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(draft) Very dark red, with a light pink head that shrank but lasted. There was some discussion as to what the aroma was, and it was decided that this smells like Luden's cough drops. Flavor is cherries and cranberries. No alcohol burn at all. Quite good, but also quite strange.

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(draft) Clear dark copper in color. Good head and lacing. Strong spice and malt aroma and flavor. Mouthfeel seemed a little watery at first, but it seemed to thicken as the glass emptied. Flavor is nutmeg and cinnamon and a touch of citrus. A lingering slightly hoppy finish. A yummy beer.

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Despite the name, this is an oatmeal stout aged in used Jack Daniel's barrels. The bartender says that every beer in the place is "lager-style" which to me means yeast. Whatever they call it, this beer is yummy.

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(draft) Clear brown. Zero fizz. Smells like a pine tree - must be the mugwort. The flavor is very weird, and very good. I like this a lot. Tastes like it should have more alcohol than it does.

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(draft) Wow! The regular Bob's 15B is decent, if a tad bland. The aging has transformed this into a fantastic beer. A dark brownish-red hue, very little head, some lacing. Very strong bourbon aroma at first that subsides about halfway though the glass. The thing I like most about this beer, aside from the wonderful aroma, is the nearly instantaneous finish. There is no aftertaste to taint the next sip.

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The Bourbondaddy is a stout aged in a used bourbon barrel. I had this last year at about this time, and I remember liking it, but I don't remember much else about it. This time around I actually paid attention to what I was drinking. It's a little bitter at first, but after that it's very good. Nothing extremely special, it tastes the way it should - a medium stout with a little bourbon flavor added.

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(draft) Dirty gold. Zero fizz. Has a sweet aroma, if that makes any sense. Flavor is quite sweet with some odd undescribable undertones. Pretty good, but dangerous because the alcohol is very well hidden.

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(draft) Hazy dark amber. Flavor and aroma were both fairly light. Cinnamon and vanilla and nutmeg, if I had to make a guess. There was absolutely no bitterness and no citrus, so I liked this. Could have used more of whatever it had.

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(draft) Dark gold. There's an unidentifiable (by me at least) aroma and flavor, both reminiscent of evergreen shrubbery. The finish is drying and long-lasting. It kind of reminds me of when I was a kid and I'd chew on Sassafras leaves. The finish is the most notable characteristic. A decent beer.

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(draft) I've gone ahead and updated this rating as this beer has become one of my favorites. Very little head, and the beer is a little flat. But the rye and honey play together quite nicely. One of the few semi-strong beers that I can get my swill-drinking friends to drink.

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(draft) Dark cola in color. decent head and lacing. Nice and smooth. More complex than the first few sips indicate. Spices and hops and nutmeg and molasses are what I think I detected. A good beer.

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Somehow combined bland and rotten in the same glass. Tasted like fermented Mazola Corn Oil, and not in a good way. Blech.

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(draft) Much blander than I was expecting. Just a beer, neither great nor horrible.

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Very faint peppery aroma, with a little smoke thrown in. Not much taste until the finish, then a little pepper heat. I was expecting more pepper, so I was expecting to dislike this more than I did.

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(draft) I just had a small sample glass of this, as I was not expecting to like it. I was right. Very watery tasting, but sort of a thick mouthfeel. Hard to believe that this comes from Rogue.

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(draft) Very dark cherry revealed when held up to the light. A lot of complexity, but most of I think wasted as nothing stood out at all. I did think I got a little cherry at first but even that subsided by the second or third sip. Good, but not very memorable.

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(draft) Dark bronze. Very light foam. A strong aroma of whatzit and orange. The flavor was mostly whatzit, with some light orange peel thrown in. Despite the citrus, I did like this beer. I just wish I knew what the whatzit really was.

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(draft) A very nice surprise. Dark clear amber. Minimal head. No detectable aroma. The yummy malty and fruity flavor came out of nowhere. There are supposed to be citrus adjuncts but I couldn't detect them at all.

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(draft) A very nice beer, with a good blend of various unidentifiable spices. I got no citrus at all, and I'm glad for that. Quite yummy actually.

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(draft) had a decent flavor, but there wasn't much flavor to it. I kept getting hints of spices and such, but the hints faded as soon as I started to detect them. Good, but not great.

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(draft) Cloudy yellow/orange. A nice head that faded quickly. This is a very citrusy Belgian when it first enters the mouth, but then the pumpkin takes over and coats the mouth with sweetness, then there were some nice spices in the finish. Just yummy. It seemed like it had a high ABV, but its 10.5% still surprised me.

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(draft) Kind of funky aroma, which was to be expected I suppose. A mild mustardy flavor, just a slight spiciness. Much much better than I'd expected. I will have more of this, definitely.

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(draft) Of all the beers at Rich O's, this one is perhaps the one that's been recommended to me most often. Frankly, I don't understand all the hype. It is a good beer, but not a great one. I think my main problem was the gritty feeling I got in my mouth while drinking it. It almost seemed like there was something that hadn't quite dissolved all the way. By the end of the glass it was better. Other than the gritty mouthfeel, this beer smelled and looked fantastic, and it had a really good flavor - one that wasn't nearly as sweet as I was expecting. A very drinkable beer, but any place that has this probably has something better as well.

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(bottle) Quite an interesting beer. Very complex, with flavors I don't think I've ever encountered before. The stuff was good, though perhaps just a little too fruity for me to say I really liked it. I will have it again sometime though.

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(draft) Not as disgusting as it sounds. It tastes like Hawaiian Punch. this might be good with the blackened mahi-mahi with pineapple sauce they have on their food menu.

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(draft) It reminds me of the Great Lakes Christmas Ale that I enjoyed so much a few months ago. There was some fruitiness that I will call raspberry and some nutmeg as well. My only real problem with this beer is that it's rather strong and I cannot safely have more than one.

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(bottle) Wow. I wasn't expecting a beer this special. The label says "Belgian Ale Brewed with Juniper Berries." There's not a whole lot that I can add to that description, but I owe it more. Flat-out yummy. If there's a better beer on Earth, then I haven't had it. I want more right now and always.

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(draft) Clear bronze. A very interesting vanilla and smoke aroma. Despite the name, there wasn't even the tiniest hint of bourbon. A nice medium mouthfeel, with vanilla and light smoke in the flavor as well. Pretty fucking good. I don't care who makes it.

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(draft) I was expecting more from this beer for some reason, but I should have known better. This is, after all, the brewery that touts their chocolate stout as "double" chocolate even though it's clearly the weakest of any that I've ever had. But enough ranting. A decent brown ale with a touch of something that I couldn't identify - there's not enough of whatever it is.

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