Beerly Departed - Search The Crypt's Records

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Michelob - Winter's Bourbon Cask Ale

Melting Snowman
Where to Dig Up More About This Beer
Michelob - Winter's Bourbon Cask Ale
Michelob Brewing Company
Anheuser-Busch, Inc.
St. Louis, Missouri USA
Est. 1852
www.michelob.com


Brain Damage Quotient = 6.0% ABV
Fluid Oz. = 12.0 

Postmortem Brew Review
Soft amber orange, tawny color.
Sweet vanilla smell and taste up front.
Robust, smokey bourbon after finish.
Smooth foaming head from the pour with good lacing.
Medium bodied mouth feel.

Grim Reaper's Eulogy
Distinctive and different. An ale for the winter. Interesting flavor being aged in oak casks used at one time for bourbon. And as if that's not enough, they drop whole Madagascar vanilla beans in the batch! Yummy! Oh yeah, that's not even the best part; here's to a mass produced American beer with an alcohol content of 6%. There is so much more flavor in higher alcohol content beers. The Europeans know this the best! This will become a Christmas tradition!

Michelob has been a sort of Jekyll and Hyde brand for AB. In the 50's & 60's "Mick" was for cool ultra hipsters being they were way too cool for Budman and his sophomoric antics. Its sexy signature 'teardrop' bottle proved it was more for adult "after-hours" types.

Then came the lean 70's thru 80's where the audience shifted to adult urbanites, again making the
cool scene. The last 15 years or so, Michelob has been a brand adrift in light, ultralight, low carb, low taste gimmicky beers...but still aimed at the hip movers and shakers that don't want to get into the Bud rut. I thought it would become the dot-com of beers during that age and die a death, but no!

About ten years ago something started to metamorphize. AB set its sights square on whatever Sam Adams was up to in the micro-taste part of the industry. Michelob now sports a variety of seasonal beers aimed at...you guessed it...hip beer drinkers looking for something a little different in their brew. The familiar 'teardrop' bottle is just a memory now, but they definitely have my attention. Here's to reincarnation; something the Reaper can certainly get behind!

No comments:

Post a Comment