5.5

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 5

Winter 2004-2005 bottle drunk on 2/23/2005. Pours a caramel brown with some darker mahogany hues and a small off-white head. Filtered, very clear body. Aroma of heavy spicing, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, etc... Caramel stickiness seems a bit too sweet, with little to no lager crispness. Flavor starts out with heavy spicing, dry and lightly astringent. On the heels of the spice, comes some of the sticky-sweet (or should I say, sickly-sweet) caramel flavoring. Seems cheap and artificial. On the finish, there is some light lager yeast, and more drying spice. Papery astringency disrupts the body, and the disjointed nature of the beer (dry spice, cloying syrupy sugar) makes me shake my head and slowly pour it down the drain. This one is all over the place, and I don’t think the lager yeast works with the syrupy sugary caramel flavor and overly dry spice. With some tweaks to this beer and significanly less filtration, this could have potential.