As January comes to a close and the weather outside slowly gets warmer (I definitely rocked shorts the other day), it brings us to a close of the winter beers. Now I know that there are plenty of more winter brews in the world and I only scratched the surface with my selection but I tried to cover some of the more likely beers that you will find in your local liquor stores. For our last winter beer session I'm going to go a little out of the box and go with a smaller brewery that you may or may not be able to find in your local store. The brewery in question is the St. Bernadus Brewery located in Belgium and produces a wide range of different beers and the one that we'll be looking at is the St. Bernardus Christmas Ale. First off, the beer is not cheap costing around 11 dollars for a 750 ml bottle (about the size of your average wine bottle). The upside to the beer, before actually tasting the beer, is that the ABV of the beer is 10%, which is almost double that of a normal beer. The beer is a dark beer with a very strong and distinct flavor which leaves a lingering aftertaste in your palate. The beer has a strong fruit flavor to it which is dominated by the orange in it but at the same time the beer is very smooth and does not have a bitter taste that comes from beers with a lot of hops. The only downside to the beer is the lingering aftertaste that it leaves that sits on in the back of your throat. All in all, the beer is an above average winter beer that would definitely go really nice after hours while hanging out with a couple friends around the fireside. It is a beer I think beer lovers should definitely try and should get a chance to please but will not be every body's favorite.
Overall Score - 6.0
The next category of beers is up for grabs. I'm looking to do IPA's or maybe wheat beers, not sure yet, if you have any suggestions let me know.
BG
Dear TG,
ReplyDeleteI want to start out by saying that i love the blog, but I am sometimes left hoping for a little more emotion in your descriptions. It sounds kinda formulaic, and for me at least, beer is an emotion. Also, is there any way that you could maybe archive the beers by category so that when I'm searching for what you think I can do it easier...Because when I'm drunk, I like em easy.
Love Numbs
Numbs,
ReplyDeleteLove the code names bro...
Bill, if you are taking requests my vote is to go with a standard category like some wheats and then just go with some off the wall stuff--take a tour of Asia and try some Kiriban and junk like that.