The Bar Towel

A surprise new arrival at the LCBO for the holiday season is Wychwood Bah Humbug strong ale. It doesn't seem to be part of the upcoming holiday beer release, and at the Atrium location at least, it was shelved with the holiday gift-packs.

As with most Wychwood beers, the ratings on RateBeer aren't great, but I tend to like winter warmers a bit more than the average, so I'm looking forward to trying it.

Good catch Greg! I scored a couple today and will try one tonight. I have been luke warm towards Wychwood beers in the past...a tad thin for my palate... but I like the sounds of this one being a malty full bodied beer. Doesn't seem to be a lot of them ordered.

tried this tonight....one of the few Wychwood beers with a sturdy malt backbone and some body. Nice seasonal with a spice-hop combo that seems to work well. I'll be stocking some more in to serve visitors this Xmas.

Is it in a clear bottle? Cause I can probably tell you what it tastes like right now if it is

JerCraigs wrote:Is it in a clear bottle? Cause I can probably tell you what it tastes like right now if it is

No. Brown tinted glass!! imagine that! Just the same I heve not had a light struck Wychwood in the clear bottles...I just found them a little thin and laking in flavor definition for all the schmaltzy advertising/packaging.

The nose on this is a fooler it smells and looks like you will be biting into a gooy rich sweet Chrismas cake but it is surprisingly non cloying-spicey-hoppy for the malts in it......I did wonder if the cinnamon was natural or a concentrate additive..it seems fairly sharp...hot almost.

After reading this post I'm about to head downtown and see if my pathetic-at-best local LCBO has it in stock.

I can think of a hundred things I'd rather drink than Wychwood brews, but I can also think 100 things I'd take Wychwood stuff over any day.

EDIT: So as expected, my pathetic LCBO had none of it in stock, but they did have 9 bottles of the Belhaven Twisted Thistle, after one of their employees told me that they weren't going to be getting anymore, lmao.

So I ended up buying 6 of the 9 bottles, and will keep my eye open for the Bah Humbug.

bought a few bottles of the bah humbug, and well i'm not surprised, as a few other posters have said, they wychwood beers are pretty thin. Mind you this is probably the best wychwood beer i've had. I still find it thin for a winter warmer, but its not half bad, it had a nice sweetness to it.

Wow the fall/harvest/christmas spices are great in this beer. I only had a small sample at work, but I really enjoyed it. Definitely a fireplace sipper.

Sipping on this one now, they had quite a few at the Steeles/410 LCBO near Brampton/Mississauga. Unlike most of you I was a fan of Hobgoblin, although not much so of Black Wych "Stout".

Bah Humbug is great! Tons of malting, good hopping, excellent spicing. I'm really pleased with this one.

Cheers,
Rick.

OK, so for anyone who has bought and opened multiple bottles of this, i want to know if you got the same result.

My roommates and I cracked a bottle each during dinner on friday (mmm spiced beer and festive specials), at least, that was the plan. My two roommates got bottles that while spicing was evident, had no aroma and not a lot of taste, while mine was overpowering in the aroma and the taste, to the point that when sampling each others, we wondered if there wasn't two different beers in the bottle, the very understated version they got, and the overstated one i got.

Question is, has anyone else observed this, and does anyone know which version is the right one, or should it have been somewhere more in the middle. I really liked it, if i thought i would consistently get something like the bottle i had.

I've had four bottles so far (with three more in the fridge) and all were pretty much identical. The aroma and taste were noticeably pleasant but not overpowering. I quite like this brew. I bought them at different LCBOs.

Duct Tape wrote:OK, so for anyone who has bought and opened multiple bottles of this, i want to know if you got the same result.

i don't know if it's any different bottle-to-bottle, but i did not enjoy the bottle i had. the appearance and aroma were nice enough, but the taste was terrible. like licking an ashtray where someone had just burned cinnamon sticks or something. then there was that aftertaste that made you wish you'd only kept the beer for its aroma and not even considered tasting it...drainpour.

Unless you drive out to Hopelessville, Northern Ontario, where do you find this stuff?

I'd love to get more Thistle in Belleville.

Belgian wrote:Unless you drive out to Hopelessville, Northern Ontario, where do you find this stuff?

I'd love to get more Thistle in Belleville.

Unless the LCBO has more stock to distribute, apparently you get it in the frozen tundra only, or i guess you could beg your LCBO store manager to try and transfer some from the styx.

Anyone got a bottle of this to trade?
http://www.bartowel.com/board/viewtopic.php?p=24528