“Our first Bona Fide release for winter – Ember, an Amber Ale spiced with Maple Syrup, Cinnamon and Vanilla to warm your spirit on these cold winter nights.  Time to get just a little serious.
The Bona fide limited release series is our chance to focus on quality limited release beers without the need for a story, pun or pop culture reference. They’re just good beer for beers sake.
These brews are more frequent than our other series and once they are sold out they are gone.”

Glassware: English Pint.

Appearance: Reasonably clear mild amber with soft red hues. It forms a thumb of khaki head which quickly peels off and settles at the rim. A wet lace is dragged down as we imbibe.

Aroma: She’s certainly sweet. The vanilla and maple syrup components rush the olfactories but as we say that the cinnamon and nutmeg counteract it. The hallmark nutty malts, honeysuckle and subtle cola then marry up with this somewhat fruity apple pie quality which is an absolute pleasure to take in. Lightly toasted malts on the flank. It literally smells like a baby version of some of The Bruery’s pastry beers.

Flavour: It’s a lot more carbonated than we were expecting. Being a “spiced winter ale” as they’ve named it doesn’t really suit the narrative so far. The other downside to it is that it really takes the edge off the lovely sweet and spicy maple, vanilla and cinnamon. What we’re left with is a watered down version which slips through too quickly but at least manages to hold on for a little while on the back end.

Mouthfeel: Too over carbonated, watery and thin. This part of the beer has totally ruined what could have been something pretty decent.

Overall: It was all shaping up to be a stunner but the mouthfeel and flavour profile (or lack thereof) let them down in our opinion. This was our first crack at Bonehead too so it’s a shame it couldn’t follow through.