Apple and spice in the beer? You bet. Leinenkugel’s Apple Spice seasonal brew is loaded with apple and cinnamon to the point where it tastes more like a cider than a beer. I found it incredibly sweet and difficult to drink much more than half a bottle, but my wife was a big fan and kept bugging me to make sure it was OK to drink the bottles in the fridge. If you’re a cider fan, you’ll definitely want to give this beer a try (if you can find it in your neck of the woods); it really is something different.

Leinenkugel’s suggests the beer be served either cold or, get this, hot, like a hot, mulled cider. I didn’t go that far, nor did I experiment with the delicious-looking dessert that Lienie’s created (that’s it in the picture, next to the beer), involving apple pie filling, vanilla ice cream, graham crackers, and half a bottle of Apple Spice beer whipped into a meringue. I’d be happy to try it, though…

B / $7 per six-pack / leinie.com

With an alcohol level of 27%, served at room temperature, and not carbonated, Samuel Adams’ Utopias is not your father’s can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. With 8,000 bottles produced — some fetching up to $600 (though a still-insane $175 is a little more standard) — it’s definitely not PBR, no.

So, what is it?

Utopias tastes closer to tawny port than anything else. It’s got a strong chocolate and raisin flavor, coating a light, herbal bitterness and malty aftertaste that is the only aspect of the drink that will remind you of beer in any way. The alcohol has a real kick to it. Those hoping to gulp this down like a Miller Lite will be sorely disappointed. Utopias is perhaps the only “after dinner beer” I’ve ever tried. Try sipping it with ice cream or a big chocolate cookie instead of downing it with a taco. (That said, I’d still prefer to simply drink an inexpensive port over this. Major league beer fans will probably feel differently.)

I would be remiss without mentioning the collectible decanter it comes in, a copper number designed to look like an old-style brew kettle. Two little shutters open to reveal the Sam Adams portrait logo in a sort of etched glass. Whoever designed this thing was either a genius or as high as a kite.

B / $175 / samueladams.com

Merry Christmas, fellow drinkhackers. In the spirit — nay, the flavor — of the season here’s a short beer review.

Saint Arnold heralds itself as Texas’ oldest craft brewery, and they put out about a dozen types of beer. Their Christmas Ale has been in production since 1995, and it’s apparently quite popular at holiday time. It’s easy to see why: This light amber has a surprising sweetness atop its light hoppiness. Nothing complex here, but at 7% alcohol by volume, you likely won’t care for long.

P.S. Sorry for the cameraphone pic (courtesy of beer purchaser Josh Pipes). Also, sorry for the system downtime… something’s rotten at the webhost.

B+ / $7 per six-pack / saintarnold.com

Another holiday beer, this one a spin on a traditional brown ale, but overloaded with hoppiness. The dark brown “winter warmer” is certainly rich, giving off a nice aroma of chocolate and caramel malts… but an overpowering bitterness wipes the sweetness away once it hits your lips. It’s not a hard beer to drink by any means, but I’m prone to move on to other bottlings after sipping just one of these.

B / $7 per six-pack / pyramidbrew.com

Winter is approaching and that means holiday brews are hitting the stores. A nice choice is Lost Coast’s Winterbraun, a microbrew that is as holiday-appropriate as you’re likely to get. The secret is chocolate and caramel hops, which give this brown ale a distinct flavor of cocoa powder, even a bit of grittiness in the finish. Not too heavy, but a good fit with holiday foods like turkey and stuffing or even a pumpkin pie. I’ve had no trouble knocking down several of these over the last week as the weather has gotten progressively colder, though to be honest the freaky, surreal snowboarder on the label is a real turnoff against what is otherwise a decent brew.

B+ / $7 per six-pack / lostcoast.com

Costa Rica (reportedly) has one brewery: Imperial. And if you like crisp and light Mexican beers, you’ll love Imperial.

It’s sweeter than, say, Pacifico, but not so tangy as, say, Jamaica’s Red Stripe. It’s also got a curiously mild aftertaste, which I pegged as something like corn, or corn tortillas. Not bad at all with any sort of south-of-the-border cuisine.

Imperial is not easy to find in the States, but came across six packs at BevMo, and on sale, no less. (You’ll have better luck on the west coast, where Black Eagle Imports distributes it.) Give it a whirl if you come across a bottle!

A- / $7 per six-pack / beer.co.cr

It’s been years since I tried Tsingtao (also written Tsing Tao), but they were out of Sapporo last night, so I figured, why not? Pleasantly surprised, this crisp Chinese didn’t have the medicinal taste I’d recalled. Rather, it was light, slightly sweet, fragrant, and without a hint of “chemical” aroma. Some reports say that quality was bad in the ’90s due to pollution of the area and pesticides used on the beer’s barley crop.
Tsingtao was actually founded by German settlers in Qingdao, China, where it’s still made (along with other breweries, too). It’s America’s #1 Chinese beer, and the only Chinese beer I’ve had for that matter. According the company, it’s also the #1 “branded consumer product” exported from China. Not sure what that means except that the beer is awfully popular.

My bottle went down quick and easy, leaving me ready for more. A real thirst-quencher of a beer, that sweetness tricks you into drinking it quickly. You could see how you could get into trouble with a six-pack of this stuff.

So, with all the talk of Chinese pollution and product recalls, is Tsingtao safe to drink? Turns out Tsingtao imports all its barley from overseas now, though the hops and water are still local. The company has refuted a formaldehyde contamination scare, as well. I have to assume that domestic watchdogs like the FDA test the beer regularly, too… but maybe I’m just being naive.

Whatever the case: It tastes good… and like all good Chinese products, it’s cheap, too.

A- / $6 per six-pack / tsingtaobeer.com

One look at old standby Newcastle and you feel like you’re in for a treat. A nice medium brown but not too dark, frothy head, looks like it can’t miss, right?

My latest encounter with Newcastle (reportedly the #2 imported beer in the U.S.) was hardly the experience I was hoping for. In lieu of a rich brew I found it to be thin and watery. Lightly bitter, but hardly rich. Kind of oily, and not much more pleasant than drinking Budweiser.

Could it have something to do with the fact that Newcastle closed its historic brewery in 2005 and moved to the city of Dunston? (That’s right, Newcastle is no longer made in Newcastle.) The company also tried to modernize the beer’s look in 2000, a failed attempt that temporarily removed the “ale” from the label for a few years. (It returned in 2004.) I don’t know if all the meddling did something to what’s inside the bottle, but this isn’t the Newcastle I’m familiar with.

B- / $8 per six-pack / newcastlebrown.com

Eh, looked interesting in the cooler, but this otherwise by-the-book, golden brown IPA has a little too much I and not enough P for my tastes. The hoppiness overpowers the brew (the company claims five types of hops are used), and while you can get that taste of lemon peel if you work for it, it’s an awful lot of work, more than I care to undertake when drinking a beer. It’s not a bad beer, but frankly, there’s better IPA out there.

B / $8 per six-pack / bridgeportbrew.com

Pomegranate is the It fruit of the last couple of years, and but do we need to inundate ourselves with the stuff? Bacardi says its Silver Mojito is the #1 selling flavored alcohol beverage (technically it’s a “flavored beer,” hence the category here). The Bacardi Silver Pomegranate Mojito is that, plus pomegranate.

Well, sort of. I didn’t find the Bacardi Silver Pomegranate Mojito to taste much like either pomegranate or mojito. Mostly it tastes like chemicals to me: with the mint-flavored chemicals overpowering the pomegranate-flavored chemicals. I had trouble getting through the whole bottle, and I actually like the taste of chemicals.

The Bacardi Silver Pomegranate Mojito is probably a pleasant enough diversion for you if you love Smirnoff Ice or retro Zima, but serious drinkers won’t be able to stomach much of this overly sweet, vaguely minty concoction. God bless you if you can.

C / $6 per six-pack (est.) / bacardisilver.com