14. Special Holiday Ale - Nøgne Ø, Jolly Pumpkin, and Stone Brewing Companies

This is a super limited edition beer that was actually brewed at the Stone Brewery, but it is a collaboration with Nøgne Ø and Jolly Pumpkin. They wanted to make a beer that reflected wintery tastes that were native to their regions, so it has juniper berries from Norway, white sage from California, and chestnuts from Michigan. They also added some caraway seed to round things out and brewed up a nice rich brown ale. Then they only released it in five states and then only to stores that already carried beers from all three of the companies. Sounds great right?

Well it wasn't that good. Jordan says it was alright, just not amazing. I, however, was put off by the cat pee smell that I think came from the juniper berries. I just couldn't get past it and get into liking the beer, even though it tasted ok, sometimes. It wasn't as interesting or complex as I expected it to be, but they recommend aging it, so we bought another bottle and will try in December and see if has gotten any better. We will see.

It gets 3.5 out of 5 things that have been overly hyped from Jordan, who says it was a solid beer that just didn't live up to the hype. I give it a 2 out of 5 states that got the super hyped beer. I didn't really like it but feel compelled to give it more than one state because we need to leave room for the truly bad beer that we may come across and because cat pee is a totally valid taste to have in wine, so I guess it is in beer too.