No. longer No. Lights

Okay I had to slack a little last week, I know it's easy to just sit and type, but I haven't felt like doing much more sleeping my way toward recovery. For this review I've decided to go home for the holidays, or at least 80 miles south of where I was born. This week I thought I'd kick things off with a beer from Northern Lights brewery in Spokane WA. I've seen this beer in a varied amount of stores from Top, to a convenience mart in Spokane (although it is much easier on the other side of the cascades to find). This particular one came from 99 bottles which usually carries a nice amount of beer from these guys. I love me some dark winter warmers, and this one has a nice unique taste. I love the malt taste that accompanies the Scotch ales for the most part, and this winter warmer has a wonderful up front malted taste that also gives it a nice smooth finish. It gives this beer a brownish red color, a little darker than an irish red. For those of you who love the hoppiness of IPAs don't worry this one comes aquipped with a wonderful hoppy aftertaste towards the end. If you let it liner in your mouth for a while it has a wonderful hoppy/spiced taste to it after the initial blast of malted goodness to start. This one kicks it out at about 7.5% alc, and gives the belly that wonderful heat up most of us are looking for in a winter beer. Just about all the cover art on the Northern Lights bottles is the same, this one just has a snowing atmosphere to the background. It pays homage to the fact that during the winter time in that area it is possible to see the Aurora Borealis (outside the city of course). But that cover is always on their beer which is good. I have a couple of side notes to this first off if you ever visit the brewery have some of the beer jerky, it's DAMN GOOD! Also I happend to be eating Pad Thai before this, which initially gave it a real caramely flavor, not good or bad just unexpected. All in all it is a pretty flavor full winter warmer, those in Spokane may find this a bore as it's usually more available than water there, but for the rest of you folks I recommend it as one of the better winter warmers out there.