This smooth winter warmer is actually more akin to a porter style beer with its light sour pucker and subdued creamy charcoal bitterness. Textures coat the palate seamlessly with nary a flint spark of heat. On the flipside, the ales complimentary ash and alkaline profiles annoyingly pull a Houdini and vanish in the third and final act, the result, a less than stellar watery taste on the finish. This ale is hardly flawless, it's nowhere near as bombastic as I prefer, but I like it, it has upstanding merits and an uncommon wintery character.