Samuel Smith's Winter Welcome Ale

Review Date 11/23/2000   Last Updated 11/26/2020  By John Staradumsky

It wouldn’t be Christmas without Samuel Smith’s Winter Welcome Ale. Before the flood of Christmas seasonals from microbrewers and megabrewers became popular, there was Winter Welcome. A perennial harbinger of the Christmas season, Winter Welcome rang in Season’s Greetings with a quote from Shakespeare on its label: ”Blessing of your heart, you brew good ale”

Winter Welcome is sold in half liter single bottles and four packs of 12 ounce bottles. Each year it is vintage labeled (this year’s is 2000-2001, for example). This is a great help to the consumer, as I have seen more than a few retailers stash their leftover stock of Winter Welcome for the next holiday season. This is not a beer that will improve with time. It should be drunk within the holiday season in my estimation.

This is festive and complex ale perfect for cold weather imbibing. The alcohol content is slightly elevated at 6%. It’s a great beer to enjoy with friends at a holiday party, and to serve with holiday meals. Today is Thanksgiving, and though I didn’t have it with my holiday meal (that honor belonged to Samuel Adams Cranberry Lambic), I’m enjoying it with an overstuffed turkey sandwich topped with stuffing, mayo, and cranberry sauce. Ham, turkey, duck, goose, prime rib, and any special holiday meal would benefit from being served with a glass of this special brew.

Winter Welcome is not a spiced brew as has become popular with many microbrewers across the country. It is not a wassail. It is merely a very rich and delicious English ale released for the holiday season. It is imported into this country by Merchant du Vin (French for wine merchant), a Seattle Washington based importer of fine beers including those of the German Ayinger and Pinkus Muller breweries, the Scottish Traquair House and the Belgian beers Orval and Lindeman’s. The Pike brewery in Seattle is also a Merchant du Vin venture.

Samuel Smith’s Winter Welcome pours to a deep amber color with light carbonation and head formation and a nose hinting at raisin. The palate is smooth and toasty malty, raisiny, nutty, buttery and mushroomy. It’s well balanced in the finish, rather dry but not exceptionally bitter, and unfortunately a tad skunked. I will never understand why this beer shows up in clear glass year after year, but when I popped the cap off this year’s version my nose was greeted with the familiar but unwelcome odor of skunk. There’s not enough of this in the beer to make it undrinkable, but it is noticeable.

Update 2002: As I do every year, I picked up some of the 2002-2003 edition and found it to be a bit darker in character with a more pronounced sweet maltiness and a more noticeable hop aroma and bitter finish. This is likely the best sample of Winter Welcome I've obtained in years. In many ways reminiscent of a fine Yorkshire ale, and why not? It's brewed in Yorkshire, after all.


Update 2006: Just tonight I picked up a bottle of this perennial favorite, and finally the stuff is being packaged in brown glass. As soon as I pop the cap I get a wonderful nose full of rich butter rum aroma. No skunking, thank you very much!

A thick and creamy head forms atop the liquid the deep amber colored liquid, and a touch of Brussels lace follows the beer down the glass. A sip delivers more of that delightful butter rum flavor along with a hint of vanilla, toasty nutty malt, mince pie candied fruits, raisin, and (surprise) a delicate herbal grassy hop aroma in the finish. A subtly bitter hop bite rounds the beer out beautifully.

Do yourself a favor and grab a few bottles of this delightful holiday ale while its fresh. This is truly a magnificent brew.

Update 1/11/2011: Give Samuel Smith's credit for this, they are consistent. As I sip the 2011 edition of this wonderful brew, I could just as easily be sipping a bottle from ten years ago. Same wonderful notes of butter rum, vanilla, mince pie and fruit cake, toasty nutty malt, and those wonderfully herbal and slightly bitter hops in the finish. I used to complain about Sam Smith beers being a bit expensive, but I bought a 550ML bottle this year for $3.99, not much more than I paid a decade ago. For that, I'm bumping it up a half star to a full five.

Update 12/11/2014: Samuel Smith's Winter Welcome has become harder to find these days, at least here in Georgia. So when the local growler shop offered it up this past November I snapped up a bottle, which I'm enjoying tonight. Delicious as ever, malty and delightful with those luscious butter rum flavors, flinty, and in the finish full of earthy, herbal hop aroma and a balancing bitterness. If you don't care for spiced holiday brews (or even if you do), Samuel Smith's Winter Welcome is a treat that isn't spiced but is still very nice. As Sam Smith's says on the label:

This seasonal beer is a limited edition brewed for the short days and long nights of winter. The full body resulting from fermentation in ‘stone Yorkshire squares’ and the luxurious malt character, which will appeal to a broad range of drinkers, is balanced against whole-dried Fuggle and Golding hops with nuances and complexities that should be contemplated before an open fire.

Still a bargain at $4.99 for the 550 ML bottle in this the 25th anniversary year for Winter Welcome.

Update 1/23/2020: It's the 30th Anniversary of Samuel Smith's Winter Welcome Ale, and I'm enjoying this nutty, butter rummy, flinty treat all winter long. I picked up a four pack at Target for $9.49 in November of 2019 and I'm enjoying this wonderful beer in draft form (a rare sighting indeed) at Taco Mac in Alpharetta. Pricey at $8.58 for a 23-ounce mug, but worth every penny!

Update 11/26/2020: Happy Thanksgiving! I'm enjoying a glass of the 2020-2021 Samuel Smith's Winter Welcome Ale after the bird, and it is as wonderful as ever. The label has changed, as Samuel Smith's seeks to support bartenders in this the year of Covid. Every purchase of Winter Welcome (this year Welcome Back Ale) will help towards that end, if only just a little. This year I paid $8.99 for a 4-pack at Total Wine.

And remember, try a new beer today, and drink outside the box.

*Pricing data accurate at time of review or latest update. For reference only, based on actual price paid by reviewer.

(B)=Bottled

(D)=Draft

 

Try?

Rating  

Home

     

Re-buy?