Lucky Bucket Snowsuit

Lucky Bucket Snowsuit. Tapped last  Thursday afternoon, finally getting around to sitting down and examining it. Called a Belgian single, or pale ale. Additionally, spiced with cinnamon, clove, allspice, and nutmeg. 5.5 % ABV.

Clear, reddish-brown, negligible head. Starts as something, gets to nowhere quickly.

Aroma: sweetness and spice. Like a pumpkin pie. Nutmeg dominates and drowns out anything else.

Taste: sweetness and spice again, and, well, almost too much. Body is lean, malt holds no particular presence, suggests no true character, nothing comes through from hops, and yeast is not present either. Thin, and watery, with the spice standing over everything.

Here's the thing. I took a chance, decided it had every possibility of being good. Tapped without ever drinking it (doesn't happen that often), sampled it, and thought, "hmmm, maybe I made a mistake." Later, had a full glass and changed my mind. "No, no, this is good, people will like it." No one who had it seriously complained.

Right now, I'm wondering what was in my glass four days ago. This is so much thinner in body than I remember, there's nothing to suggest it should be classified Belgian anything, no character at all. The only stand-out flavor is the spices, and they can cover up any flaw you choose to mention, if you pile them up hight enough.

I bought another LB beer untasted/untested (my way of saying "sight unseen"), and that's their barleywine. Maybe I should hook that up before I start promoting it as anything it isn't.

Hopefully, this keg will be gone without much delay, and we can forget about it.

But, to frame it succinctly, there's nothing horribly wrong with this, except that there's nothing really good about it, either.  Taste starts turning sour further into the glass. Does that count for Belgian character?