WHAT EVEN IS WINTER WARMER?

Review Date 1/5/2024 By John Staradumsky

  Style: Winter Warmer   Brewery: Evil Twin   Country: Denmark   State: N/A   $ Per OZ: $.32 (B)   ABV: 7.5%

WHAT EVEN IS WINTER WARMER? Don’t look at me, I’m not asking the question, and I’m certainly not yelling at you with the all caps. No, it’s Evil Twin brewing of New York City (and various other places) asking this, with their beer so aptly named WHAT EVEN IS WINTER WARMER?. I can tell you one thing after drinking the beer: it ain’t this.

I say this because WHAT EVEN IS WINTER WARMER? Is part of an alarming trend I see these days to dumb down the malt in beer. A winter warmer/old ale style beer should feature malt prominently-this beer does not. It’s too thin in body, a trend that to my recollection bean with India Pale Ales. Nothing angers me more than a modern beer geek calling an IPA “too malty.” Beer, including IPAs and especially winter warmers/old ales, should be malty. Michael Jackson once called malt the heart and soul of beer, and he could not have been more correct. In a winter warmer, the malt should sing. It’s not even humming a few bars here.

Evil Twin says:

Pouring a rich, dark amber… this winter-esque brew has bold notes of malts & spices.

Evil Twin WHAT EVEN IS WINTER WARMER? Has an alcohol content of 7.5% by volume and I paid $4.99 for my can from Half Time. My can is stamped CANNED ON 11/30/23.

Evil Twin WHAT EVEN IS WINTER WARMER? pours to a muddy brown color that perfectly matches the hue on the minimalist label with a moderate head of creamy tan foam and a nose of cookie malts, brown sugar, treacle, and piney hops. Taking a sip, the beer is light in body, lighter than I want for the style, as I said.

To be fair, it is cookie malty (chocolate chip cookies) and raisiny. I like the piney resiny hops in the finish, but this one, I cannot say it enough, definitely needs more body.

Not a beer I would buy again.

Glad I tried it?  T