He'Brew Jewbelation Sweet 16 Anniversary Ale

Brewed By: Shmaltz Brewing Company in Brooklyn, New York 

Purchased: 22oz bomber bought at Evolution Wine & Spirits in Chicago, Illinois; 2012

Style/ABV: American Strong Ale, 16.0%

Reported IBUs: ?

Nothing says Christmas like Hanukkah. Today I'm looking at a beer made by the Shmaltz Brewing Company. The Shmaltz Brewing Company has two lines of beer: their He'Brew The Chosen Beer, and their Coney Island Craft Lagers. Shmaltz Brewing Company is a craft brewery based in San Francisco, California, founded by Jeremy Cowan in 1996. The company contract brews most of their beer through the Mendocino Brewing Company, and they operate a brewery in Brooklyn New York. The company is known for its innovative beer, eye-catching bottle artwork, and sense of humor. For more information, check out the Shmaltz website HERE. Don't be a shmuck, and drink good beer!

Tonight's beer is a part of the He'Brew Anniversary Ale series. The Jewbelation series began with Jewbelation 8, and since then, the brewery has released a new beer annually to celebrate the occasion. The beer uses the same number of malts, hops, and alcohol as the anniversary they are celebrating. Today's beer uses 16 malts, 16 hops, and clocks in at a mean 16% ABV. If you roll over to the Sweet 16 page, you can see all the ingredients used in this beer. The list of malts include: specialty 2-row, vienna, munich, wheat, chocolate, crystal rye, dark crystal, rye, roasted barley, spelt, flaked quinoa, roasted wheat, flaked oats, caramunich 40, carapilsner, and kiln amber. The list of hops include: Fuggle, Willamette, Golding, Palisade, Tetnang, Crystal, Athanum, Columbus, Zythos, Cascade, Centennial, Apollo, Simcoe, Summit, Citra, and Amarillo. If that wasn't crazy enough, you can actually see the instructions for brewing this. It looks like this beer has 16 hop additions, and gets boiled for over 2 hours. Crazy...

Initial reports suggest this beer is a bit hot...but I am reviewing this fresh. I did grab 3 bottles of this, with the intention of aging this. And it should age nicely. With that said, let's glass this up and see what we got.

Jewbelation Sweet 16

This beer pours surprisingly dark, with a black/molasses/brown body, and one to two fingers of brown head made up of struggling carbonation. Getting head on this is harder than drowning your girlfriend (after getting head?..har). This is so boozy, the whole beer slides on the glass, with fast streaking legs. And BROWN TONES. Really though, this is some dark stuff. Sticky lacing is hanging to the sides, and you get a brown ring with a streaky cauldron effect. (I just realized, the pink elephants on my glass totes match the bottle).

The aroma on this is insane waves of fruity molasses, malt wallop, and hops. There's definitely an underlying boozy aroma present, but it doesn't smell like vodka (so quit bitching that your 16% ABV beer is boozy). I'm getting molasses, raisins, plums, prunes; hints of chocolate and chocolate fudge (ala BCBS); hints of woody esters and some vanilla. You don't really get hop aromas, but there's a sticky, elusive hint of hops on the nose.

The taste follows through with the nose nicely...the only difference is you pick up on some of the hops, and you get some rocky booziness. Up front is really nice cocoa, chocolate fudge. There's a big punch of Sherry or hot red wine. I'm picking up plums, cherries, dark fruits, hints of vanilla/wood, plenty of molasses, and touches of piney/citrus hop on the finish. There's definitely booze in the taste, with an almost Bourbon-like heat...it's hot, but it's not too bad...

But still, at 16% ABV, this is a sipping beer. It has to be. If you can't swirl this in your snifter, and enjoy the nuances, then why bother dialing this up to 16%? Fortunately, this is quite complex, and fairly drinkable now. This is medium-full to full-bodied, but is supported by nice carbonation and has some slight thinness mid-palate. The finish is dry and sticky, but the beer itself is not syrupy. Palate depth is good. Up front is chocolate, cocoa, brownie, some wood and vanilla; this rolls into dark fruits, cherries; the back end is hop bitterness, lingering fruit, molasses...fade to dryness. 

Rating: Above-Average

I'm feeling a Light Above-Average on this...at this point in time. This is surprisingly good, despite the booziness. If you like Bourbon, or spirits, and you also enjoy beer...check this out. There is nice alcohol complexity with this beer, novelty aside. And I think this should age nicely with time. I plan to pull a bottle of this out in 3 years, and then 5. By then...I think we will have something really nice on our hands. This beer is also a huge steal at 7-10 dollars per bottle. Food pairings? Does a cigar count? This is a straight up dessert beer...either drink this beer for dessert, or pair it with some cheesecake or dry chocolate cake. L'Chayim!

Random Thought: I can't wait for the 17th Anniversary Ale...but this beer must be getting expensive for the brewery, and I would imagine somewhat difficult to brew.