Their first winter seasonal shakes things up a bit.  There are what seems to be a million people in Cincinnati who love to drink seasonal beers as soon as they come out, but for years we were faced with a pile of beers that were all fairly similar when our winter beers started rolling out to stores and bars.  With their ‘Kicksled’ they tried to maintain what we all love about winter beers, but do it a little bit differently at the same time.

The beer is what they’re calling a “Spiced Winter Stout”, but since that’s not really a style – I’m going to go with a much more accepted style classification of “F’ing Winter Happiness in a glass”.  This is a cream or milk stout, with a big, healthy dose of nutmeg and what I’m told is 20+ pounds of vanilla beans to create a liquid wonderment that when nice and cold reminds me of a glass of eggnog and as it warms takes on an entirely different roasty, earthy character that sits perfectly on a cold winter night.

They’ve made some plans to do some infusions of this throughout the winter, so keep your eyes open for some other wintery spices to make an appearance in it as time goes on…but honestly, this is pretty damn good without all the cinnamon and whatnot that I know most people would typically throw at it.

I’m not just blowing smoke when I say it, but Urban Artifact has been killing it lately with some of their recent releases, and they have quickly moved into my category of one of the most underappreciated breweries in the city.  Don’t be afraid when people tell you that they only do “wild and tart beer”, because it doesn’t mean what you think it does.  Get your butt down to their Northside Taproom, and see what I’m talking about for yourself!  The beer should be on tap today (11/10) at 4pm!