Schell's Snowstorm 2016 British-Style Ale

This is the 2016 winter offering from the August Schell Brewing Company of New Ulm, Minnesota. They were established in 1860 and they are the second oldest family owned brewery in the United States, behind Yuengeling. Every winter they release Snowstorm, featuring a different style of beer every year. This year it is a British-style ale.

The beer pours a gleaming copper in color. There is a short white head. The aroma is sweet, caramel, toffee, nutty, with some dark, ripe plum fruit. The taste follows the aromas, toffee and caramel, nutty, with a quite bitter finish. The beer drinks light, smooth and easy, with a tingle of carbonation. This is very good, but a bit overwhelmed by its bitterness. 

(I later had a second bottle of this beer. I don't know why it seemed so bitter the first time I drank it.  The level of bitterness was completely appropriate to the style the second time I drank it, and this shined through as a really good beer.)