Outer Banks Brewing Santa's Little Sledgehammer

      Outer Banks Brewing Station bottles some of their stuff, although it's not widely available.  And, it's stupidly expensive at 8 bucks a pint.  It better be freakin great.  It pours out a very dark brown with almost no head.  The nose is very sweet with sugar, caramel and spice.  The flavor is quite unique.  There's a lot of sweet sugar, burnt caramel, prune and spice.  The aftertaste is very strong, but it doesn't linger unduly.  The body is huge and it has gobs of yummy alcohol.  Still, I don't know what to think of this.  The flavors are odd, it's too sweet and the prune flavor is weird.  Even so, I kind of like it, but I'm not sure how many other people will.  For the price it's not worth it unless the description sounds great to you.  I guess this goes on the nice list, just not very high.

Outer Banks Brewing Santa's Little Sledgehammer

Boy we got an interesting one today. Santa's Little Sledgehammer is a 10% ABV Christmas beer from Outer banks Brewing a few miles down the road from me in Kill Devil Hills. Now, a couple things. This stuff is 8 bucks for a bit more than a pint. I usually try to avoid beers that are this expensive, cause I wan't to focus on beer people actually drink. Power to the people! But if your'e here, you are probably on vacation, so you might splurge a little. Also' this is a real small brewery, so they don't have the economy of scale that others have. They have to charge more. Anyway, on to the beer.
Santa's is a pleasant medium brown with that tan head to it. The nose is striking, with a lot of clove, baking spice, and this underlying, almost saccharine, sugary sweetness. Wow, that's a very heavy, full-bodied beer. There's a lot going on here. Let's see, there's a lot of spice, mocha, licorice, smoky notes and more. It's overwhelming in a good way. There's also a lot of clove here which may significantly contribute to the the anise, sambuca like, finish. This is the kind of beer that seems to improve as you drink it, or maybe all that alcohol is going right to my brain. This is a first rate Christmas beer that would seem to be perfect for the season. Too bad I'm trying it in Spring, instead of when we had the 75 f-ing inches of snow. This stuff really has duration, the flavors linger for 5 minutes or more, that's how strong they are. And that could be a big problem for some people. If you dislike anise flavors this would not work for you, stay away. But, for me, this is a real good beer. Oh, love the name.

http://www.obbrewing.com/