100 Beers, 100 Days: Day #3

Sam Smith’s Winter Welcome 2008

Tonight’s new beer has been sitting in my closet for several months. I made a trip to the homebrew store a while back and bought a couple random singles for later, but then kind of forgot about them. One was the black chocolate stout from the other night, and one was this beer. I think there’s still a couple more random singles floating around back there that I’ll have to try out in the days to come, too.

Samuel Smith makes some really great stuff. Their oatmeal stout is exceptional, and their porter is very fine too. So I was ready to be blown away by the Winter Welcome. Unfortunately, the feeling I was left with after drinking the whole glass was more of a “meh”.

It comes packaged in their standard large foil-wrapped bottle. It’s a very attractive packaging. I poured it into my tall Oktoberfest glass that I can no longer remember getting. It pours a deep amber color, very clear, and with a decent sized head that does not last very long. The taste and smell is really not much different from a Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale or similar pale ale. I detected a fair amount of hops, a touch of malty sweetness, and that’s about it.

The website tells me this is a Wassail-style beer. From this style, I would typically expect slightly more alcohol (there was little to be found in the Winter Welcome), more spice, and perhaps some fruit or honey flavors. Unfortunately I did not get those sorts of impressions from my one bottle. The Winter Welcome is a nice beer and I would certainly enjoy more of them in the future, but there was nothing about it that really stood out in my mind.