Abominable Snow Pilz and Maple Sap Brown tasting!

Last night my bud Kevin stopped  by on the way home from work and we sampled the first sips of my two water experiments.   Abominable Snow Pilz (fresh MN Snow) and my Maple Sap Brown Ale (fresh MN maple sap).  Kevin is a great beer drinker and soon to be homebrewer!  Check him out here...give him advice, make fun of him, embrace his quest for better beer!  http://sweetwort.blogspot.com/.  He is the newest of Minnesota homebrew blogger, and I guarantee he's gonna do some good stuff!

ABOMINABLE SNOW PILZ REVIEW-
First off with the Bohemian Lager- Abominable Snow Pilz.   We poured a 12 oz bottle out amongst the two of us and it had a nice crystal clear golden hue.   The aroma is mostly of caramel notes from the 90 minute boil but you can get a little spicy hop in the nose as well.    The taste of this beer was so fresh and refreshing and crisp and smooth all at the same time that it was almost overwhelming.   This might actually be my best beer I've ever brewed.   It's certainly the most drinkable and sessionable beer I've ever brewed!  The fresh MN snow definitely shine's through as the main ingredient with a nice smooth mouth-feel.  Balanced with a malty, caramelly taste and aroma, this is one beer that I wish I would have done a 10 gallon batch for.   You'd be hard pressed to NOT drink a 6er of this in one sitting.   It goes down sooo smooth.

I had a bunch of 'first's' for this brew.   First Lager, first time cold conditioning a beer, first protein rest,  first time controlling different fermentation temps for different stages in the process, first diacytl rest (kinda), first time repitching with yeast for bottling, first time having such a clear beer, first time I thought this could seriously win or do well in a competition.  

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MAPLE SAP OATMEAL BROWN ALE - Initial thoughts-
Can't really do a certified review of this one.  It did taste fantastic, but it wasn't exactly carbonated yet. Kinda weird since it's been bottled almost a week longer then my lager.    I poured a 22 oz bomber and split that for both Kevin and I.   You could see the start of carbonation, but it clearly needs to sit another week.   Actually, after tasting it, we feel that it tasted pretty green and that it could use about a month to sit and mellow.  It was very complex.  The great thing about it is, the woodiness of the maple sap really came through.  It almost tasted like it had been aged in oak barrels to me.   Also very present was the aroma of coffee.   I'll update a better review once it's sat for another month and has had time to fully carbonate and to mellow a bit.