Géants Noël des Géants

Brewed by Brasserie des Géants (Brasserie des Légendes)
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Irchonwelz, Belgium

Serve in Trappist glass, Tulip, Tumbler

Could be worse I guess. Pours hazy dark brown with a medium offwhite head and good lace. Smells sweet and sugary with some caramel malt sweetness and spice and yeast. Tastes sweet and sugary malty with lots of sweet spice and some yeast and malt and a little earthy hop character. Medium body, light carbonation.

Bottle.Dark brown colour with no head.Aroma of dried fruits and spices,flavor of alc.Malt and caramel feels warming and slight metallic.

Bottle. Nice head with good duration. Color is brown. Aroma and taste are malt, raisins, plums, caramel and hops.

A solid pour into my 25cl tulip glass produces a three-finger thick, pale amber tinged, tan colored head. The beer is a dark plum color that shows a lightly hazed, red / pale amber hue when held up to the light. The aroma smells spicy (sort of like pepper, coriander and a touch of elderberry) up front backed by fruit and rich malt notes. This smells a bit like a dark, sweet, spicy, holiday sweet bread. The malt has a nuttiness to it and almost smells of port or even sherry in the finish and perhaps even a touch of toasted grain character. There is a sort of over-ripe fruitiness to this beer that isn’t quite rancid, definitely interesting, but a bit off-putting too.

Fairly dry as it first hits the tongue, the beer picks up some sweetness as it rolls across the palate; the sweetness contributes to the caramelized grain presence as well as a touch of sherry like character that seems contributed by a bit of oxidation. A touch of spice character in the finish seems a touch like cinnamon and there is an up front note of white pepper as well as some sweetness accentuating clove character that lightly influences the entire flavor profile. The body is pretty light considering the beers alcohol and this is definitely the beers strongest feature. A touch of nuttiness in the flavor takes on a toasted edge towards the finish at times and definitely boosts the complexity a bit more.

Not a bad beer, it is showing a bit of age around the edges and is fairly complex, but seems to be missing a little something to really make it a great beer.

I was worried from the moment I took off the gold plastic wrapper over the top. Lots of rust and sedimant around the top of the bottle and under the cap. Not looking too promising. Uncapped with little to no exhale. Pours very still but occasionally a few bubbles meander up the edge of the glass. Sweet and malty aroma with some prunes, molasses and caramel. Color is a very ruddy brown that is mostly opaque. Flavor and mouthfeel are better than I expected. More caramel and lots of roasted malts. Noticable alcohol presence and even a bit of carbonation that plays on the tongue. Easy drinking and a tad dry late swallow. This turned out to be not as bad as I expected.

Bottle. Amber colour with a beige head. Aroma is spices, herbs malt , caramel. Flavour is spices, herbs, malt, caramel, yeast, sugar. Weird beer.

11.2oz bottle. Pours a cloudy brick brown with sweet aroma of fruit/spices. Seems like they emptied their spice cabinet into this ale. Lots of nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves. Decent but there’s better Belgian winters to be had (like Fantome de Noel).

Draft. Pours orange with an off white head. Fruity plummy aroma with some belgian yeasty notes. the flavor is spicy and yeasty with some plum-like fruity sweetness. Nice.