Paper City Winter Palace Wee Heavy

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 6

Normally I love Scotch ales, but this one is an exception. Colour is a deep reddish-brown colour but a bit lighter than most Scotch ales. Lots of sweet hints with notes of caramel, butterscotch, and molasses. The flavour isn't as rich as I would like, but is better than most beers.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 7

Pours with a frothy, one-finger thick, dirty-tan colored head. The beer sits in my glass with a concentrated, burnt amber color, but shows an absolutely brilliantly clear, ruby hue to it when held up to the light. Huge toasted bread aromatics are found in the nose, it smells like pure biscuit malt. Wheat cracker aromatics a touch of grassy grain character and just a hint of sweet, caramelized malt. I am really surprised how lacking the aroma is in the sweet, caramelized malt character, but the huge, dry, toasty grain notes are quite interesting.

Lightly sweet, with a light-medium heft to it. The beer is pretty well attenuated and finishes with a toasty malt character as well as a touch of astringent roast grain flavors. What lingers on in the mouth is a big, slightly astringent, toasted (almost burnt) cracker like malt character and a touch of herbal hop bitterness. While this does have a light sweetness to it, the beer is fairly dry overall. Hints of berry like malt character and a clean, grain sweetness peek through the huge toasted grain character here.

This tastes like a combination of Pale malt and some dark, roast malt, which is perfectly traditional for a Wee Heavy. This seems to be missing a complexity of malt character that I, personally like to find in these types of beers. I do like that huge toasted grain character and even the simple malt approach; this certainly sets this beer apart, but a focus on a bit more kettle caramelization / concentration would make for a much more interesting beer. This is actually a fairly straight forward beer, which can certainly be nice at times.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Every beer I try from this brewery has been great, too bad their distribution is spotty around my way. Pours a dark brown with plenty of head. Aroma is sweet, caramel, chocolate, and a bit smoky. Mouthfeel is thick and smooth. Flavors start with more sweet caramel, and a touch of chocolate. Smoky coffee enters mid-palate, then finishes off with some perfectly balanced hops. No sign of any alcohol, even as it warmed. I'll be picking up more of this stuff ASAP.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 7

Dark red brown/mohagony body topped by a medium thick head with some lace. Strong malt aroma with an alcohol background and a touch of fruity sweetness. Sweet fruity amlt flavor with a slight hoppiness and a hint of alcohol. Full bodied and warming.