Brewery: Hangar 24 Brewery
Beer: Local Fields: Winter Warmer
Style: Winter Warmer
ABV: 7.8%
Character: Brewed with spruce tips, maple syrup, and cinnamon
Ratings at time of Review: BA: 83 | RB: 92
Metal Connection: THE BLACK LEAGUE – Cold Women & Warm Beer
BeerMetalDude Rating: 4/5
Hangar 24 Brewery is from California and not available for purchase in the great state of Texas, unfortunately. Thankfully I have a great friend in fellow beer blogger, Jorge Espinoza of animebeers.com who was kind enough to send me a package which included this beer. Back in 2014, I was able to taste Hangar 24’s Double IPA at a bottle share. I rated it a 4/5, so I was excited to try something else from this brewery. This Winter Warmer was a great beer to have next from their line-up. Sad to say that since I drank this bottle, Hanger 24 retired this beer. I have known some people that hold onto bottles of this style for a while, so I decided to include this review on the site anyway for you all to read. Enjoy the review.
This is a pretty simple, but to the point kind of label. The artwork really represents the beer here. First of all, the colors used does give a warm, inviting feel to the label. The faded yellow border, dark yellow trim and lettering, along with the light to dark red gradient fade of the word Warmer all work really well to help push this beer. The artwork is that of a small airport covered in snow, near a river and mountains. Hanger 24 also let’s the customer know what’s in this beer by including a large pine cone, cinnamon sticks, and spruce twigs. As I said before, simple and to the point.
I used a Left Coast Brewing Co. Voo Doo Stout pint glass for this one. This Winter Warmer poured a clear auburn color, which was topped with a small khaki head that was less than an inch wide. The head quickly disappeared, leaving no lacing at all down the glass.
The aroma was sweet brown sugar, molasses, sweet maple syrup, caramel, biscuit bread, winter spices, cinnamon, nutmeg, earthy greenery, and plenty of spruce tips. This one just screamed winter time.
The taste was big on the spruce tips, then followed by a big hit of sweet maple syrup, brown sugar, molasses, spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and other winter spices. This one had a nice biscuit bread-like backbone. The aftertaste was again really big withe spruce tips.
The body was medium in thickness. The mouthfeel was slick and oily, with a crisp bite on the finish, and a little bit of dryness which works well with the spruce aftertaste.
Overall, this beer delivered on it’s promise of flavors. This is one of those beers that really does work best in the winter time. I can actually imagine the flavors of this beer working as a hot drink to actually keep you warm. As usual, I fell behind with this beer, as I drank it in May 2015, but I checked the activity of this beer on Untappd, and people are still checking into it as of today. One day, I will be caught up and posting reviews as I actually drink them. It’s a damned good thing I take great notes and not lose them. Anyway, I do look forward to trying other beers by Hangar 24. Hopefully I could get my hands on some of their brews, especially their Barrel Roll Series.
Metal Connection: In 1998, a Finnish Gothic Metal/Rock band was formed by the name of The Black League. Vocalist, Taneli Jarva was the bass player for the wild goat worshiping Black Metal band, Impaled Nazarene during their early career and played on the band’s first 4 full length albums, Tol Cormpt Norz Norz Norz (1992) through Latex Cult (1996). He was also famous for being the lead vocalist for the Death Metal turned Gothic Rock band, Sentenced. He performed on their albums, Shadows of the Past (Bass), North from Here (Vocals) and Amok (Vocals), and his last recording with them was the EP, Love and Death. Besides Taneli Jarva, The Black League was started by other ex-members of Impaled Nazarene, Kimmo Luttinen (drums), and Mikko Laurila. The song chosen here is perfect for this site. It is called “Cold Women & Warm Beer.” This song comes from the band’s 3rd full length album, Man’s Ruin Revisited, released on Ranch Records. Seriously though, talk about a fuckin’ beer drinking song. Raise ’em high, and raise some Hell!
Beer Metal Media 