Wisconsin Cranberry Special Ale
Sand Creek Brewing Company in Black River Falls, Wisconsin, United States 🇺🇸
Fruit Beer Regular|
Score
5.76
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Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 4.5
Notes from 4/22/2008 Another Pitmonkey special. I just love fruit beers. I was just plain suckled on Juicy Juice & apple sauce growing up. :) Basically no head off of this one. Just to make sure I pour it all out, but get nothing but a little pond scum & lace on the rim. Body is about the color & consistency of tea with a little chill haze with an errant bubble here & there. Smells a lot like a Euro lager, with big bready malt notes, but not so much with that rusty, almost citrusy character. Just to make sure that's it, I take a sniff off the bottle & get a mix or orange & cranberry juice. So I guess it is just that subtle. Taste initially is a very soft & faint raspberry-ish character tasted in a lot of browns with added fruit juice. Slightly tart, slightly crisp, & with a pinch of sour, you would honestly guess something besides cranberry in there. The middle to end is salty & absorbent, with crackers, & hints of yeast. The beer is laced with sour notes, but I just can't pull cranberries out of it. None of that rindy bitterness cranberries have, or even loads of added tart sugar(if you wanted to go in the Ocean Spray direction) It tastes alright, but I was in a real mood for cranberries. It just tastes too much like a watered down frambozen. Too yeasty at the end also. Carbonation is thick & is probably the biggest help to the taste of the beer. Yeastiness was a factor that I didn't like. Caught a few black flakes(skin?) at the bottom which are always fun, but I didn't taste anything coming from them. Beer was still light enough to slurp down, & didn't show any signs of regret. I came in expecting a big shock to my palate, but finished it feeling a little sleepy. The beer just needs either half a cup of sugar or some dark malts & I'm on the bandwagon. Till then, my ass is hurting sitting on this fence.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 5.5
Appearances are a clear reddish brown with a very short-lived tan fizzy head, no lace. Aromas are toffee malt, cranberries and a hint sour. Flavors remind me of a home brew a little bit, mainly tart with some cranberries and that's about it. Strong carbonation and a toffee finish. I think every other cranberry beer that I've had has been better.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5
Purchased at Breeze Thru Liquors in Wauwatosa, WI; enjoyed during a relatively lazy and unusually moderate Saturday afternoon in mid January. Appearance is a relatively light amber with a bit of a red hue, light white head. Aroma of cranberry juice, with a light bready malt. Taste is like a crisp cranberry cider, slightly sugary, with a crisp finish. I’d consider this more of a cider than a beer, and it’s kind of enjoyable. I don’t mind it.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 4
Bottle with gooovikings in KC. Thanks Jetson! Clear, dark orange appearance with an off white. Tangy sweet, lightly tart cranberry, red fruity nose. Kind of watery, tangy, lightly tart, red fruity flavor. Bleh.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5
12oz bottle. Hazy orange tan color. Tart cranberry taste, quite nice and refreshing. Relatively light bodied, but still packs a punch flavor-wise. Crisply effervescent. Lemony tang at first fades into a cherry like finish, or cranberry as it were. This is a really great beer, vastly underrated.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 4 | Flavor - 3 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 3
Label says Sand Creek. Pour is with with a small white head. Aroma is almost non-existant you would think a fruit beer would at least smell fruity. Flavor is almost as bland. No real cranberry and this is almost flat. Total joke of a beer. They could have at least made an attempt at something fruity.
Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 4 | Flavor - 3 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 3
Red. Too much sugar, little fruit in the aroma or the flavor. Heavy but not in a good way. I like fruit beers but this one doesn’t do anything for me.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 4 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 4.5
Bottled. Not too great. Thin head atop a light coppery body with just a touch of pink too it. Base malts are pleasant, but without much character to them. Cranberry flavor is a little slight and leaves a saccharine aftertaste. A stronger hop presence would be interesting. I hope these guys keep working on it. Re-rate: Guess I was a little under the weather when I tried my first bottle, as the second one comes across much smoother. Cranberry taste is more noticeable this time, but not overpowering, and surprisingly, not cranberry bitter. I shared this at my homebrew club tasting and yes, the wives enjoyed it (but these are beer-drinking wives who also homebrew, not wine cooler wives. They also dig my chile beers).