Afternoon, beervolk. I’m going to start off by saying I recall having a Pyramid Heffe Weizen a while back and being underwhelmed. This was years ago, and maybe my palate was too coarse, my pants too bell-bottomed or my wig too jaunty. Who knows? Who… knows. But after this very fine winter ale, I may just revisit their year-round wheaty release.

Snow Cap Ale is a fine ale. Not the best of its style I’ve ever had but a very good showing and certainly a good embodiment of what I think of when I think of Winter Warmers. So read on and then maybe we can, y’know, get out of these wet clothes. No? OK. Forget it. I was kidding. I was! Are you… though? No?

So, we were talking beer. I’ll start out by pointing out the obvious—Snow Cap Ale is a pleasantly deep, rich brown color with a thick head. Try to get about 3/4s of an inch of foam on there and it will stick around for the first half of the beer or so. Second thing to point out… it’s 7% A.B.V., which is very solid and just about what I’d expect from a good winter brau.

This beer is very much defined by a rich, sweet maltiness. Caramel and chocolate and almost molasses flavors dance around the flavor of the beer. The aroma is sweet and toasty, and then the taste blooms into the aforementioned flavors. The finish has a nice hop character—it’s very light, but has just enough crispness to calm the very sweet malt flavors down. The finish is long on sweet. A bit too much for me, actually, but overall… fine beer and certainly takes ol’ man winter and kicks him in the… shins.