A good beer from A-B? Can it be?

Went to the grocery store with the wife this past weekend and took a quick stroll down the beer aisle just to see what seasonals where to be had. Picked up a 6er of Red Hook Winter Hook. A very nice winter lager, not too spicy, hops are just right. The 6er that really caught my eye was Michelob Winters Bourbon Cask Ale. I thought, hmmm, a Winter Seasonal craft brew from the makers of Michelob Ultra? Let's give it a try and if it terrible I'll have something to feed my key lime tree. Got home and popped one open and poured. Poured a nice deep brown/copper color. Took a sniff, huh do I actually smell a hint of bourbon, a nice vanilla note? No it can't be, this stuff is brewed by Anheuser-Busch right? Took a sip, wow this stuff is actually good. Took another sip, huh this stuff is really great. In fact this is the best "Bourbon" beer I've ever had. Now, in all truth I don't know how much actual Bourbon was used in the making of this beer but there has to be some because the taste is there but in the background. It lets the maltyness and the vanilla (that it is also aged with) do most of the work and then fills in the gaps. The perfect place for bourbon to be in a beer. In all the other Bourbon aged beers I have had (and oaked beers to a lesser extent) it feels like I am drinking fizzy bourbon, it is used to cover up the taste of an inferior beer. I will have to hand it to the folks at Michelob, in my opinion they knocked this one out of the park for a macro brew. A good introduction to a craft beer style for the masses. Maybe some random Bud drinker will pick up a 6 pack of this and be impressed enough to give some other interesting styles a shoot. If even one Bud drinker is converted over to the world of beer with taste because of this brew then that is a great thing. I'll give this one 3.5 out of 5.

Happy Drinking!