Harpoon Winter Warmer

First Brewed: 1988
Brewery Location: Boston, Massachusetts, United States and Windsor, Vermont, United States
ABV: 5.9%

History & Availability: As Harpoon's winter seasonal, Winter Warmer is distributed heavily throughout the winter months. Chances are wherever you find Harpoon beer, the Winter Warmer will be available. Harpoon says this beer is available from November to January but it's pretty easy to pick it up for even up to two months after they officially stop distributing.

Appearance: Winter Warmer is a medium-dark maple-colored beer with a creamy tan head. The clarity is really high for being as dark as it is, and you can see the carbonation racing up the sides of the glass as a result. The head itself is really rich and thick despite being relatively thin, so head retention is probably going to be pretty good.

Smell: This is by far the strongest-smelling beer I've rated yet. The second I popped the cap, a huge rush of banana and cinnamon raced into my nose. It's extremely potent and doesn't even really smell like beer at all, but instead some kind of spiced eggnog mixer. I think it's gotta be the slight hint of nutmeg that's making me think of winter; the strong cinnamon smell is really overpowering otherwise.

Taste: This beer tastes like a spiced banana. It surprises me every time I have a bottle how little it tastes like a normal beer. There's no malt taste, no hops taste, nothing at all. The cinnamon taste is, again, really overpowering, but unlike in years past I'm able to notice some little subtleties that didn't exist before. The very first time I had this beer a couple years ago I actually thought someone was playing a joke on me and had dropped an Atomic Fireball in my bottle while I wasn't looking. It was really that stupidly overspiced. For this year's batch it seems like they've toned it down significantly, which is definitely a good thing, but it's still way too much for me.

Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied with a prominent aftertaste. Carbonation is relatively unobtrusive. The issue is that it's extremely hard to focus on how it feels in your mouth with how spiced it is. Unless you really, really enjoy the taste of cinnamon, it actually doesn't matter how the beer feels in your mouth since you won't want to do anything but pour it directly down your throat.

Drinkability: Objectively speaking, the beer is plenty drinkable. It's light in the stomach, not too heavy on the carbonation, and doesn't require too much of your tolerance. But the flavor is never something I'd want to have more than one of. This is one of the few beers I've ever left unfinished simply because I can't bring myself to drink the rest of the bottle. Rare are the times when I'd choose not to drink a free beer, but I think I'd decline this one.

Overall verdict: D+, don't bother unless you've got an insatiable cinnamon craving.