Beer Review: Southern Tier 2X Steam

Serving Type: Bottle

ABV: Eight percent

Appearance: This beer has an amber color, but it's light in color. It featured plenty of pretty gold hues as well. There was a thin, but bright white head. The body is foggy, but only slightly so. It has both an appearance of heaviness as well as lightness. Somewhere perfectly in between. The lacing of this brew sort of sticks to the glass, but is weak enough that it just falls back into the beer when I set the glass down after each sip.

Smell: Initially, the aroma of this was both very herbal and floral. It was also slightly hoppy on the nose. Maybe a little more than someone like me would like. There was even a little malt presence as well. Some caramel peeks through as the beer warms up a tad.

Taste: Given the lack of malt in the smell, I was smacked in the mouth with loads of malt once I started to actually drink this beer. I also noticed a great bit of tasty and sweet caramel as it drifted farther towards the back. A slightly roasted profile also acts very complimentary to the sweet caramel. The finish was very floral and crisp. The hops didn't come off as harsh as I originally predicted. This was very balanced.

Overall Rating: 

This was a great find in one of my local six pack shops. I really love to try steam beer any which way I can find it. Anchor Steam is one of the measuring sticks of the style. It's a bit more herbal and bitter. This one by Southern Tier was a little sweeter on the tongue. It was such an interesting contrast one I compared these two.