August Schell Brewing Company – New Ulm, MN

Schells brewmasters hit a home run with this year’s SnowStorm style – Dunkel Doppel Weizenbock. Personally, I think this is the perfect winter beer. Aromas of banana and clove swarm your nose as you fill your glass with this brunette gem. This forms a beautiful ivory colored head which leads to a full bodied mouthfeel. As you would expect, this beer packs a punch with flavor as well as alcohol content. At 7% abv. you can taste the smooth roasted malt up front which was described by one reviewer to be like drinking caramel frosting, yummy. On the backend you get the banana and cloves with the estery yeast you would expect of the style. You’ll also note some milk chocolate flavors and a distinct but not intrusive alcohol flavor.

The label is a bit of a let down, though it is clearly a winter beer, no where did it indicate what style the beer was and remained unchanged from 2009′s Baltic Porter. Schells has made previous SnowStorm batches year-round beers if they are popular enough, Firebrick being one example.

Much like snowflakes, no two Snowstorm beers are alike. Once a year, our brewmasters lock themselves in the testing room with a secret selection of fine malts and hops, only emerging when they’ve hit upon something truly extraordinary. 

Overall this beer is a creamy, buttery rich slam-dunk of a winter beer. I highly recommend it! [Schell's SnowStorm]

Overall – 4.6/5
Mike’s Score – 5/5

Schells Brewing Co.

This is part 10 of our 12 part series on Midwest Holiday and Winter Beers

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 21st, 2010 at 3:04 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.