This bottle is from quite a few years back. I was out beer shopping with my patient parents while I would trek from place to place looking for seasonals and other beers that I couldn’t get in SoCal. If I remember correctly, we were at Woodstock Deli when I picked out this winter release from Fort George. So a raise of the glass to my Dad who is probably scouring all the bakeries in heaven and to my mom who still takes me out beer shopping when I return home.
We have a gusher! Quick action saved pretty much the whole bottle but boy does that get the heart rate up. “North” pours a dark orange color. The first aroma that I get is an oak wood barrel note. I am also getting a little of the promised fruitcake. Mostly citrus and a touch of pineapple. First on the palate are notes of caramel and cola but what really amazes is how bubbly it is. Very bright for such an old beer. Then I get a bit of dark chocolate covered orange and more of the oak mix together pleasantly. And believe it or not, I think I am getting some hoppy bitterness at the very back end of the beer.
Verdict – I should have brought this up a couple Christmas’s ago. I believe that I would have gotten a bigger hit of fruit notes and more of that hoppy spice would have tied this together into more of a holiday fruitcake seasonal. But it did hold up incredibly well for a beer that was only 7.5%
