Mikkeller Santas Little Helper 2008

Mikkeller
Formerly brewed at De Proefbrouwerij
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Copenhagen, Denmark

Serve in Trappist glass, Tulip, Tumbler

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Dark brown-red, beige small cover. Aroma is cocoa and cinnamon, oxidation. Taste is sweet, lots of dark fruit, light cinnamon. spiced. Interesting but a bit old.

Drunk 13.12.2011 (so, aged for 3 years.) @ Oluthuone Leskinen, Oulu, Finland. Pitch black beer, the head is minimal in this aged version. Very deep roasted notes, lots of cold coffee, milk chocolate and charred bread. Dark cherry and plum notes, raisins, slightly port wine-like. Hints of toasted vanilla, toasted almonds and licorice. The flavor still starts sweetish, slightly rhum-like and caramel syrupy. Finishes considerably drier and highly complex mixing intense dry fruitiness with woody sherry notes, dark roasted coffee and milk chocolate. Medium body, silky texture with flat carbonation. Nice, aged touch of alcohol. This beer really seems to age beautifully after all. The 2010 version at its first birthday wasn’t even nearly as good as this.

As compared to 2007, the aroma has more caramel and less spice. Flavor is also thin and watery. Dark brown.

Thanks to yespr for that one. Bottle looks simple but good. Beer in the glass deep black, small head. Fruity-dry aroma. Starts mild, almost washy, modest dry, some alcoholic notes. Finish still very mild, not very complex. Rather disappointing.

Old amateur rating: Dark brown with a fine brown head. Malty aroma. Flavor is sweet and has good bitterness.

Hazy darker brown coloured beer with average carbonation and a small off-white head. Strong malty and yeasty roasted aroma. Full palate. Finish is bitter sweet old madeira herby alcoholic. Not bad.

Bottle @ Pannuhuone, Kuopio. Originally rated on 18.6.2010. Slightly worse than the 2009 version. A bit unbalanced.

@dmacs-750ml bottle-thanks to dmac for sharing–pours no head and black color that sheets the glass. Aroma is cocoa/roasty-dark malt, some dark fruit. Taste is cocoa/roasty/ashy-dark malt, earthy hops.

Pours almost dead flat, with a deeply concentrated, brown body. The beer smells of Port Wine, nutty Sherry (though not overly oxidized as Sherry usually is). The beer is quite fruit laden in the nose with notes of raisins, prunes and concentrated figs playing quite a prominent role. There is perhaps a hint of alcohol towards the finish and there is also a soft mustiness to this beer that reminds me of a damp, limestone cave, or perhaps a slightly damp cellar. The oxidation and fruit character combine to form an almost umami like concentrated, oxidized-caramelized malt character here in the aroma; despite being flat the nose is actually quite complex, rich and enticing.

Flat feeling of course as it hits the tongue, and this makes the beer seem a touch lighter than it would otherwise be. There is a rich, nutty character to the finish that really lingers along with ample Sherry notes. The nuttiness in the finish gets quite toasted at times and there also seems to be a slight metallic note that I sometimes get from the skins that are found on some nuts. The middle has some viscous heft to it (this beer would feel more rich if it had some carbonation to it), this lingers for a bit on the palate in the finish, but then seems to disappear. The rich fruitiness from the aroma isn’t quite here in the flavor, though there are some slight dark fruit notes that come through.

This beer is really reminiscent of a Port or Sherry, especially due to being completely still. It doesn’t have the richness in the flavor to pull that likeness off though; the body isn’t viscous enough, nor is there enough fruit character to round out the complexity. The aroma, though, does have the proper balance and intrigue to be quite nice; too bad the rest of the beer didn’t live up to this. I wonder why this beer is flat, the synthetic cork was a pain to remove and I wonder if a synthetic cork, when compared to the real thing, is just quit inferior when it comes to retaining carbonation. If this is the case, then a big, rich beer like this should not be packaged with synthetic corks.

750 ml bottlle from Jonathan Ron Brielle. Poured a flat body which was slightly slick and syrupy brown with no head what so ever. Aroma of syrup, sweet chocolate, slight alcohol and vanilla. The body is almost completely flat with a thin mouthfeel most likely due to the lack of any carbonation and quick duration on the after taste. Flavor of chocolate, grains, old raisins and stale alcohol. Meh it’s okay.