Samuel Smith's Winter Welcome Ale

Beer: Samuel Smith's Winter Welcome Ale
Brewery Location: Tadcaster, North Yorkshire, UK
Beer Style: Winter Warmer
Serving Style: Bottle
ABV: 6.0%


I wanted to try a seasonal winter beer while we were at the Heorot. I have seen this bottle at Party Pak and haven't yet tried it, so this was a good opportunity for it. This is actually my first "winter warmer" styled beer. The BJCP says this about winter warmers:

Winter warmers are a more modern style that are maltier, fuller-bodied, often darker beers that may be a brewery's winter seasonal special offering.

I didn't notice until after the beer was almost finished that this was the batch from 2005. I would really like to try this as a vertical tasting to see if there is much difference at all.

Pours a medium ruddy hue with slight orange accents with three fingers of head from an unaggressive pour. Head dissipated rather quickly and left only a very thin blanket of lace with little to no lacing on the glass walls. I smell a sweet scent of toffee and caramel at first with slight touches of biscuity malt and cinnamon. The scent isn't heavy and you need to really get your nose into it for those smells to become dominant. The taste is very light and easy on the palate. I do pick up slight flavors of malt, dark fruit, and butterscotch. Mouthfeel is very smooth with low carbination and a nice sippable factor to it as well and lends itself for great drinkability all year long really.

Not personally one of my favorite offerings from Samuel Smiths, but a good effort nonetheless. I am going to give this another try from this years batch and see if there anything different about it.

Cheers!
Matt