Sunday, March 2, 2008

Sunday Night Suds - Full Moon Winter Ale


While not well known to many, the Blue Moon Brewing Company is a division of Coors Brewing of Golden, Colorado. You would be surprised at how few people are aware of this, although I guess the fact that they don't identify themselves as affiliated with Coors on the Blue Moon bottle labels probably plays a factor in this as well.

Not that long ago I was sitting in a restaurant with a number of colleagues. We were celebrating a well fought victory in the never ending battle against insurance companies and their creative ways of not paying claims. Although I could not eat in the restaurant, I could certainly drink and most of my friends know my affinity for beer. I perused the menu (mostly foreigns) and selected Blue Moon. A younger attorney from my firm had never heard of Blue Moon and decided to try it as well. While I drank mine straight from the bottle (I can be uncivilized at times) he poured his into a glass and was surprised by the cloudiness of the brew. I explained to him that Blue Moon (the regular version) is an unfiltered wheat ale and that the cloudiness was normal. I did not stick around to see whether he ordered another.

As alluded to above, the Blue Moon Brewing Company produces a regular wheat ale which is quite tasty (I will review it at a later time). They also produce seasonal brews: a Spring Ale that is brewed with lime, a Summer Ale (Honey Moon) that is a take off on the traditional Wheat Ale but with a bit of honey brewed in to the mix, a Fall Ale (Harvest Moon) that is brewed with Pumpkin and spice (not one of my favorites) and the Winter Ale that they call Full Moon.

Of note, the Blue Moon company are pretty punctual about pushing out the next season brew and it is very difficult to find the current season Blue Moon past the first month of the season. Personally, I have had to scour many beer stores to find any left over Full Moon and when I do find it I buy as many packs as Sarah will let me keep in the house.

The Full Moon is an Abbey Ale, somewhat darker than average but not straying to far into the stout or chocolate categories. It is brewed with a "hint of dark Belgian sugar" that gives it a slight sweetness in the aftertaste. The carbonation (as with all Blue Moon brews) is perfect and gives a great mouth feel. Personally, I like it with full flavored chicken and/or beef dishes.

Full Moon (like all Coors products that I am aware of) is under the Kosher Supervision of the Orthodox Union.

To see what the experts on Beer Advocate think about Full Moon, please follow this link - http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/306/39581

As always, please remember to drink responsibly and to never waste good beer unless there is no designated driver.

NOTE: As a follow up to last week's post on Saranac Scotch Ale, I received an email back from the Saranac people (only three weeks after I first emailed them) and they will not be producing six or twelve packs of the Scotch Ale.

If you have seen this post being carried on another site such as JBlog, please feel free to click here http://www.kosherbeers.blogspot.com to find other articles on the kosherbeers blogsite. Hey its free and you can push my counter numbers up!

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