Goose Island Christmas Ale

Brewed by Goose Island Beer Company
Style: Old Ale
Chicago, Illinois USA

2009 version, in bottle. Hoppy and malty, but you wouldn’t know it was a Christmas beer unless you saw the bottle. Nose is sweet and floral. Consistent lacing around the sides of the glass. Clear amber color. Tastes like malt and grassy hops with a citrus twist.

Bottle - 2009. Pours a brownish orange hue with a small, creamy beige head. Nose is mildly floral and bready. Taste is initially (and briefly) sweet with caramel before a lingering floral bitterness. Some toffee and bready notes right in the end. There is something about this lingering sweetness after the florals that I just can’t put my finger on... almost like a piney/berry thing. That’s it, a pine berry. Whatever... an enjoyable holiday treat nonetheless.

Bottle. 2009 Vintage. Bronze beer with a nice tan head. Grapefruit and light sweet malt aroma. Malt flavor with grapefruit and pine and some light vanilla. Medium bodied. Sweet malt, vanilla, and pine lingers.

deep caramel color and nice white lingering head. Nice hoppy smell, but the taste is a very sweet malty one. not bad but i would rather go with Sierra Nevada’s celebration, especially as far as price is concerned

Tap, goose in wrigleyville. The aroma is lightly spicy, mostly malts. A bit of caramel, with a dry hop finish. Tasty, but generic.

pours a dark caramel with hint of orange. head retention similar to an ale. malty, light nutty, flora aroma. orange, malty caramel flavor. overall a two out of five drinkability.

Bottled 10/9/09: Pours a picturesque amber, mostly transparent with just a slight haze, and dense, lace-inducing, tan/peach head that dissipates in the center but leaves the glass forever painted with bubbles. Nose is a mixture of cookie dough malts and candied cherry hop notes with sweet fruity must painted over it all. It really smells of Christmas desserts. Flavors bring back the doughy malt notes and accentuate them with underyling sweetness. The malts and resiny hop characteristics combine like melted cherry hard candies. There’s also notes of chestnuts and spicy hop buds. Body is medium to full with an almost syrupy sweet texture but with enough bold hoppiness that it doesn’t come across as too syrupy or really even that sweet. This is amazingly full and dessertish for 5.4% abv, which makes me wonder how accurate that is...I see some danes with a bottle that states 7%. Who cares...this shit is nice and I will definitely be stocking up on this for good winter drinking...If only we had winter here :(

Pours a deep copper with thin off white head. Nice aroma of alcohol and spice. As I take a sip a nice malty presence guys up front. Then a very unique spicing. Rum and raisin and maybe some clove. Fairly hoppy on the finish with a nice sweetness. Very nice.