New Glarus Snowshoe Ale

Brewed By: New Glarus Brewing Company in New Glarus, Wisconsin

Purchased: 12oz bottle from a 6-pack bought at Woodman's in Kenosha, WI; 2014 

Style/ABV: Amber Ale, 5.7% 

Reported IBUs: ?

Mmmm mmm love those trips across the border. About New Glarus:

New Glarus is the rare, gorgeous "Midwest" brewery, founded in 1993 by Deborah Carey, the first woman to found and operate a brewery in the United States. She raised the capital for the start-up as a gift to her husband, Dan Carey, who is New Glarus' brewmaster and co-owner. Dan Carey has a long history working in the brewing industry, including an apprenticeship at a brewery near Munich, Germany and a job as the Production Supervisor for Anheuser-Busch. The brewery began as an abandoned warehouse using old brewpub equipment. In 1997, Dan Carey purchased coper kettles from a brewery in Germany. In May 2006, New Glarus opened their new (current) facility on a hilltop in the village of New Glarus. The facility looks like a Bavarian village, and is gorgeous. The expansion has allowed the brewery to continue to increase their production, and expand their operations. For more information, check out their brewery page or Wikipedia. 

The Snowshoe Ale is a winter seasonal, brewed with a blend of American and German malts, and hops from Slovenia and the Great Pacific Northwest.

New Glarus Snowshoe Ale

Appearance: Matches the bottle. Seriously, we have a chicken and egg thing going on here. What came first, the beer's SRM or the bottle? I can only guess. Anyway, this one is dark brown/red, like an Amber, with a nice finger of caramel/amber head. The beer is transparent, and features a nice amount of mid-sized carbonation. It's a good looking beer.

The aroma is very malty, with Marzen and Vienna-esque malts popping on the nose. I'm getting Munich malts, toast, bread, rye, sweet sugary malts, caramel, and some grassy and floral hops. The hop note almost hints at something brighter and sweeter, like tropical fruits. I'm curious what "pacific northwest" hops were used in this. 

This is incredibly New Glarus, with a strong leaning towards the sweeter, German, caramel malts, toast, Munich sweetness, and Marzen-like goodness. I think this is an Ale, but fool me once. There's a lot of bready toast and dried berry sweetness in here, and any hints of "pacific northwest hops" are washed away in favor of more straight up grassy and floral hop notes. There's a kiss of hemp sweetness, but this is no West Coast bong rip. 

This beer is amazingly consistent like that one girl you dated who was super average and you had no real reason to break up with, but you did anyway because sometimes you want to try something more edgy. It's a good Winter Amber...consistent and smooth, but malty and warming, and yet drinkable. But the 5.7% is on the higher end for the New Glarus wheelhouse, at least for this style of beer. It's medium-bodied, well carbonated, has good duration, and is complex enough. It's an Amber. The front end is malty and toasty; the mids dial up more toast and caramel sweetness, with dried berries, caramel, and burgeoning hops; the back end hits some hop notes and features lingering malts.

Rating: Average (3.5/5.0 Untappd)

I'm feeling a Light Average on this. It's somewhere between "middle of the road" and "above average." I couldn't not recommend it based on how quaffable it is, but there's no mystery or intrigue here. Food pairings here are whatever. Anything light goes well with an Amber. Pizza, chicken, whatever. Not bad @ 7.99 a sixer or whatever I paid.

Random Thought: I do appreciate these simple beers, but I'd appreciate them more if I lived in Wisconsin.