Warming, Spicy, Balanced, and Very Good!
Apr 12 '05
The Bottom Line This is a testy winter beer/American IPA that will please beer geeks the world over.
Clipper City Brewing Company is the largest business of its kind in the Baltimore, Maryland area. It produces beer products that cover a wide range of styles, with the product lines divided into several groups. One of the groups is called the High Seas beers, and they are generally stronger and more full- bodied. One of the High Seas products is Clipper City Winter Storm, an aromatic beer with lots of flavor.
Basic Characteristics of This Beer:
Poured from the bottle, this beer is golden with a tinge of redness and it produces an excellent head of foam that lasts all the way to the end of your drinking session. The aroma is very nice, with scents of pine and floral notes long with a candy- like sweetness.
This beer has plenty of taste present, starting with sweet, caramel malt and ending with bitter, fruity hops. The piney tastes from the hops are present all the way through the drinking experience and they never go away. Citrus fruit is also evident, and so is the sweet flavor of lightly toasted malt. There is also some alcohol flavor in the finish.
Clipper City brews this beer using pale malt, crystal malt, and karapils malt along with magnum, fuggles, cascade, Chinook, and centennial hops with ale yeast. The final product has an alcohol level of 7.5 percent by volume and a bitterness rating of 55 IBU.
Food Compatibility:
This beer is spicy, and hence it goes nicely with spicy food dishes like Chinese, Indian, and Thai. It could also be drank with hot wings and barbecued meat dishes, but not with sweeter foods or desserts.
Final Thoughts:
Winter Storm is a heavy beer brewed in the tradition of an American IPA. This seasonal beer is available only in winter and it is intended to taste more intense and to keep imbibers warm during the chilly days of the winter season. It has a spicy character, but the spiciness found here is more in line with an authentic American IPA. It isn't the type of flavored spice (ginger, nutmeg, etc.) you often find in other winter seasonals.
When I first cracked open a bottle of this beer and gave it a pour, I was pleasantly surprised at the heavy level of foaminess. The foam is rock –solid and it lasts all the way to the end of the glass. Besides the foam level, the aromatic nose is also very nice and very enticing. Based on appearance alone, this beer is already perfect before a sip is even taken.
Slipper City bottle conditions this beer, and this is the reason why the foam level is so great. With the active yeast in each bottle, the carbonation is higher than normal and it leads to an aggressively foamy brew. So don’t be shocked when you find a think layer of yeast sediment in the bottom of your bottle. And don’t be surprised when you pour the beer and the foam rises so quickly you have to stop pouring and quickly sip the beer to prevent overflowing.
This beer has a bitterness level of 55 IBU, but I found it to be less bitter than many IPA, including some with lower IBU levels. The reason is because Clipper City takes care to brew this beer in a balanced way. There is just as much emphasis on the delicious malt background as the hops, and this keeps the beer from getting too bitter and too harsh. I found the taste to be somewhat like Sam Adams Boston Lager, but with more body and more of a fruity taste. And this fruity flavor is pleasant, making for a nice aftertaste that will have you licking you lips.
Clipper City products do have one distinct disadvantage: They are not easy to find. They are sold in only a few sates (Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Illinois, New Jersey, and Washington D.C.), making it tough to locate a six pack. If you do come across some, however, it will prove to be worth the wait. Clipper City beers, and particularly the High Seas product line, are better than average brews, made with the beer geek in mind but also made to be less extreme than some of their craft- brewed cousins.
Overall, this ale is a very good one and I recommend giving it a try. It’s stronger than average, and two bottles has as much alcohol as three bottles of Budweiser, so it does pack a punch. But it’s still very good beer. I’m going to award Clipper City Winter Storm with a rating of 4.5 stars out of 5. It is a distinct and complex beer product, with a perfect appearance and lots of great taste to warm you up in winter or any other time of year.
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