I was very sad not to be able to make it to the Great American Beer Festival this year, having already committed my measly 2 weeks of vacation elsewhere. So, for a week I lived vicariously through my beer nerd-filled Twitter & Facebook feeds. Saturday’s big award ceremony was thankfully streamed live online by the awesome guys at BeerTapTV, and thanks to a quiet Saturday afternoon at work I managed to watch almost the entire thing!

The highlight for me was to see local Florida guys Cigar City Brewing, snag a silver medal in the Wood and Barrel-Aged beer category for their Humidor Series IPA (in 2009 it even won Gold!). I absolutely love this beer, and fittingly had just shared a bottle with the hubby the night before. Maybe my sighs of pleasure reached the gods ears?

Pours a murky orangey-brown colour into the glass with a good amount of frothy off-white head. Leaves a beautiful lacing down the inside of the glass; no surprises there with this nice sticky beer!

Smell is a fruity, woody punch in the nose (if you could ever describe something so delicious smelling as something so violent!). Hints of pineappe, nectarine and bitter orange are followed by some piney hops and cedar wood; I honestly could sit and just smell this beer forever, it’s just lovely!

Taste is very close to the aroma, but with a really interesting and tasty addition of some spicy, white peppery notes. The cedar is definitely present as well, doing an awesome job of balancing out the sweetness from the pineapple & nectarine notes. The finish is great with a seemingly perfect balance of hoppiness and sweetness.

This is a scarily drinkable beer for 7.5%, it’s well carbonated with a great body to it. Bring me another!

ABV:     7.5%

IBU:     ?

Serving style:     750ml bottle