The Triangle

Issue date: 1/11/08 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Media Credit: www.sevenpack.com This bottle of frothy goodness is sure to keep you warm and inebriated.

Media Credit: Avery Brewing Co. To keep the spirits up during the winter, drink Avery's Old Jubilation Ale, the beer with holiday cheer.

Face it: the holidays are over.

This means it's back to school. No more presents, no more parades and no more family dinners. It doesn't mean that there can't be more drinking or seasonal beers though. Enter Avery Old Jubilation Ale. Just because the holidays are over, that doesn't mean you can't jubilate a little with a hearty drink. These winter warmers like Old Jubilation are big on body, taste, alcohol and malty goodness. It's the cure for what ails you in the sobering cold weather. It'll warm you up and get you drunk at the same time.

The dark mahogany beer pours with a beige foam head. It is about an inch thick and disappeared relatively quickly. The body of the beer is dark and rich, much like the wood I used to describe it. You can get lost in its deepness, as it goes from wonderfully translucent around the edges to perfectly opaque in the middle. It's a great dark beer to look at.

Smelling it isn't so bad either. It begins with the strong scent of ripe cherries. This gives way to a slight tinge of hazelnut. The smell lingers on and smells sugary like caramel. It's pungent, but not overly powerful. It is a seasonal scent and is very cheery.

The taste is somewhere between a stout and a brown ale. It is a good mix of the chocolate malts that give the stouts a chocolate mocha type flavor with the barley malts that give it a hazelnut flavor. Also, there is a slight hoppy bitterness of lighter ales on the tongue that interacts with the yeasty sourness inherent in stouts. What's interesting about this beer is that while it has a spiced flavor, only malts are used to flavor it. This is a great achievement for the Boulder, Co. brewery to get this much flavor from only five malts. it's a good balance of flavors. Not one aspect of the beer overpowers another.

The beer is highly carbonated and this gives it a perfectly creamy texture. The bubbles are noticeable but not abrasive. The complex flavor of the beer makes it good for sipping. Because it is a full bodied brew and warms your throat going down, it's not the best beer for chugging. Enjoy this seasonal release while it is still cold outside though. It would probably go best with some kinds of red meat or a nice pork chop. Stay away from spicy stuff though!

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