Maritime Pacific Jolly Roger Christmas Ale

Brewed by Maritime Pacific Brewing Co.
Style: English Strong Ale
Seattle, Washington USA

12 oz bottle. Deep ruby-brown beer with a thick light tan head. Sweet malty and spicy aroma, nutmeg, cinnamon. A bit of plummy aroma as well. Smells like a gingerbread cookie. Flavour is spicy over sweet caramel and toffee malts. A bit of diacetyl flavour, but isn’t objectionable. Sticky, puddingy malts with a clove-dominated spicy flavour. Lingering bready malt finish. As it warms, the peppery alcohol and spicy hops really come forward.

From the bottle Pours a deep copper with a decent head. Aroma is a nice balance of warm malt, hops, and spice, but the flavor is decidedly sweet for my palate. The spice and roasted malts clash with a dose of hops that, in more modest company, would themselves pack a considerable blast. The mouthfeel is oily, sticky, and other than its density it hides its 9% very well. Not bad, but not a standout. 7/4/6/3/14=3.4

2006 version, draft This is a big oily alcoholic mess of a winter beer. I don’t see the point. 6/3/5/3/10=2.7. I’ll average it out to 3.1.

Brilliant bright red appearance. Strong malty dark fruit (prune) aroma and notable spice. Well spiced bready malt palate, caramel, toffee and dark fruits. Fair bitterness in the finish.

This beer pours a cloudy copper color with a soapy white head and little bit of lacing on the sides of the glass. The aroma is full of whiskey, malt, cloves, earthiness, wood, bourbon and super sappiness. The flavor is much like a combination of sweetened wood and coca cola with undertones of cloves and cinnamon. After it warms a bit the vanilla in the finish also becomes a tad more pronounced. Mild levels of carbonation, somewhat prickling when cold and tongue coating in texture. Perhaps a touch of grainy roasted barley as well...strange.

Bottle: From reading some of the other ratings, I think I tasted a spoiled bottle. It smelled right, but didn’t taste right. But as far as appearance it had a lovely burnt siena color with average density along with a hazy look. I did pick up on hints of vanilla, cola and caramel.

Tap. Very dark amber. Light ring of foam around the glass. Very good light spice and alcohol aroma. Throat burning spice in the finish. Moderate flavour and noticeable alcohol.

Deep red body, thin light cream head. Big toffee aroma with raisins, caramel, and a touch of prune. Yeah, it’s like a holiday dessert. The flavor isn’t as interesting, but it’s still pretty nice with toast and a touch of toffee and dark fruits, notes of caramel, and hints of red grapes in the finish as well as bread. Nice balance of toasty and sweet flavors. There may be a touch of spicing too (cinnamon?). Thanks Dan (jah noth) for the bottle!

on tap at the jolly roger in seattle. dark purple colour. pleasant bread and butter pudding and raisin flavours with some decent dryness. quite warming, good stuff