‘Tis The Season Of Specialty Brews

Pretty proud of yourself because you’ve sampled all those Christmas seasonal microbrews I wrote about last month?

Or maybe you missed out on most of them, because you don’t drink anything you can’t get at the grocery store.

Either way, you might want to check out what the bigger brewers have to offer in the way of winter specialty beers.

Coors’ Winterfest is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, which the brewery boasts makes it the longestlived national seasonal beer in America.

While billed on the bottle as an ale, the thinnish Winterfest is actually an amber lager - a little malty sweetness, a little hoppy spiciness, some pleasant seasonal sipping for folks who aren’t into big, bold beers. Think Silver Bells Light.

On the other hand, Samuel Adams Winter Lager - described as a dark wheat bock - displays some of the more rich, complex tastes generally associated with an ale. As an ale fan, I found it surprisingly good for a lager, much less an Adams product.

Boston-based Adams, a “contract brewer” that hires bigger breweries to make most of its beer, also gets good grades for a brand-new winter brew called Old Fezziwig, after the character in Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.”

The deep mahogany beer, brewed with orange peel, ginger and cinnamon, has a lingering aftertaste in which those flavors take turns coming to the fore - the perfect alcoholic accompaniment to Christmas cookies. (You can find it at such specialty stores as Jim’s Home Brew Supply and the Spokane Wine Co.)

And as for you fruit beer buffs, there are winter brews for you, too.

Adams again offers its tart Cranberry Lambic, styled after the classic Belgian wheat beers, while Pete’s Brewing Co., another contract operation, weighs in with its Wicked Winter Brew.

Wicked Winter Brew, an amber ale produced from a recipe that won a national homebrew competition in 1993, is made with lots of raspberry and a little nutmeg. As for the “wicked,” well, it’s much less naughty than nice.

Coming on strong

There’s also a new microbrewed winter beer I overlooked last time around: BridgePort’s Winter Brew Ale. This is the first time in recent years that the Portland brewery has distributed a holiday ale throughout its market area.

Bridgeport, a faithful interpreter of traditional, malty British ale styles, places Winter Brew in the strong ale category - a label it lives up to, at a hefty 6.2 percent alcohol by weight.

A big, bittersweet, spicy beer, the deep amber Winter Brew is a welcome arrival in a year when many micro seasonals seem to be leaning to the lighter side. It’s worth searching out at such spots as Hill’s Someplace Else and Wine Stein’z in Spokane, Capone’s in Coeur and Eichardt’s in Sandpoint.

On the rocks

Speaking of Sam Adams, you may have noticed its recently released Scotch Ale on the shelves.

A word of warning: This is not your typical Scottish ale, like Grant’s or McTarnahan’s. Scotch Ale is made with smoked peat malt, the stuff that gives Scotch whisky its distinctive flavor.

It’s fairly smooth and malty to start with, but has a smoky, roasted, somewhat harsh aftertaste. Like the label says, it’s an acquired taste.

While not one of my favorites, it’s the sort of thing I could picture sipping along with a good cigar following a fine meal. If I smoked cigars, that is.

Pale imitations

So much for sophisticated Seattle palates. In a recent pale ale tasting, a Seattle Times panel picked Pyramid pale as its top choice (no particular argument there), and “Redhook India Pale Ale” (known as Ballard Bitter in the rest of the civilized world) as No. 3.

Then things got weird. Second place went to Emerald City, a rather nondescript Rainier product that’s actually more of an amber ale, while Jet City, a contract brew also made by Rainier, finished fourth.

Well off the pace were two top-notch products: Grant’s aggressively hoppy India pale ale - described as having a “touch of bitterness” by panel members - and Hale’s flavorful India pale ale, which has been called “the best of the style I’ve ever had” by Bob Klein, author of “The Beer Lover’s Rating Guide.” Go figure.

By the way, Hale’s fans will be happy to learn that the Colville-born brewery’s smoke-free Seattle brewpub finally opened for business last week. Check it out any day except Sunday at 4301 Leary Way NW in the Fremont neighborhood.

, DataTimes MEMO: On Tap is a monthly feature of IN Food. Rick Bonino welcomes reader questions and comments about beer. Write to: On Tap, Features Department, The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210. Call 459-5446; fax 459-5098.