LOST COAST’S WINTERBRAUN TOTALLY SHREDS

As we go even deeper into the holiday beer season, the varying styles that make up this cornucopia have obviously become a disproportionate amount of my intake, as they perhaps have yours as well. This is all relative, of course, as I feel the need to point out to you, to myself & to my wife, if she’s reading this, that my weekly beer consumption only hovers around the 3-6 bottle/pint mark. Some “expert”, hunh? Far from it, my friends, but since nearly everything I drink is being enjoyed for the first time (i.e. I make a point of tryin’ new exilirs), it might appear from the frequent posts on this site that insane quantities of beer are pouring down my throat every week. Now that might actually be the case tomorrow, when I attend the annual holiday beer fest at Oakland, CA’s PACIFIC COAST BREWING CO. Look for an eyewitness report on that next week.

In the meantime, I had another really strong winter ale this week that I’d like to recommend to ya: the WINTERBRAUN from LOST COAST BREWING in Eureka, CA, way up in northern Northern California. These are the folks behind DOWNTOWN BROWN, a long-surviving (and very good) microbrewed brown ale. Funny enough, so it this one – a brown ale with some darker malts and slight fruit characteristics. It doesn’t leap onto the palate the way some of the overly spiced beers do, but it has a really nice complexity that both smells great and keeps you guessing. Good with a steak, I’d imagine. The label has this crazy-ass skier just shredding the slopes, maybe the best label and most ridiculous label of the year so far. I’m a fan – this’ll go into the rotation every year. 7.5/10.