Ipswich Winter Ale: Rating: B+
Samuel Smith’s Winter Welcome: Rating: B+
Harpoon Winter Warmer: Rating: A- BUT BEWARE!! UBER SPICE ALERT!!!

Samuel Smith’s beers hold a special place in my heart. Not because they are the only remaining independant brewery in Yorkshire, but because of the way that I discovered them with Dave and Brian in the mid 1990s.  We would sit at the kitchen table or around the fire place and crack one open and savor the smell, the flavor and the color of these extraordinary beers.  The craft beer boom brought me closer to a lot of people and opened me up to a whole world of drinking beer because I enjoyed drinking beer, not because I wanted to get loaded. In college I used to think that Miller Genuine Draft was the nectar of the gods.  Foolish mortal. Limited resources and limited choices severely limited our selection and the day in 1992 that I tried Budweiser Reserve was the day that I swore that I would be more discerning with my beer drinking. Tolerance be damned! Liver be saved!

When you take off the cap of a Samuel Smith’s Winter Welcome you will be treated to a berry scent. It might be boysenberries. I’ve had boysenberry jam before, but I would have to google boysenberry to remember what one looks like.  This beer is light for a winter ale. It is NOT a light beer, but the color is lighter, orange.  There is a certain field smell and a smell that I cannot pick up. I feel like a noob.  There is a nice balance of hops and malt and the head is fairly thick and substantial.

That kicker is that this is not one of the better beers to come out of Samuel Smith’s brewery.  If nearly any other brewery were to put this beer out, you would say it was one of their top!  Samuel Smith’s has raised the bar with its Nut Brown Ale, it’s India Pale Ale and, perhaps one of the greatest beers of all time, Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout. If you are looking for spices, you will not find them, but you will enjoy the beer regardless.

Samuel Adams delivers a consistant, high quality drinking experience. You know that, but that’s not why you come to this site. You want to hear something a little different.  This year’s Winter Lager seems to be a little bit different than previous.  I mean, the stuff is delicious. If you compare it to their other seasonal offerings, it does not hold a candle to the uniqueness of their Summer Ale or even the Old Fezziwig, but it is hearty and delicious.

When I cracked it open,  I smelled banana nut bread and that was a scent I have not picked up in another beer. It was as unexpected as it was comforting and welcome.  The focus of Samuel Adams Winter Lager is the malt and less on the hops.  I did not find it as sticky as the Magic Hat Roxy Rolles.  The color was a beautiful reddish amber.  As I recall, this is a bock beer, which is a German beer, traditionally brewed for special occasions.  High-gravity Bock beers are higher in nutrients than lighter beers and were brewed by monks who drank them during periods of fasting.  This explains the banana nut bread smell.  The spices in the finish are sure not to offend anyone.  I suspect that Samuel Adams Winter Lager and Old Fezziwig were concocted in tandem and that because the Winter Lager was less spicy and more mainstream, it became the standard for Sam’s winter offering.  Hey, they’re both winners in my book.