St. Bernardus Christmas Ale

Pours out a dark brown to settle a nearly mat black with a small sense of brownness to its body. Very heavy looking and an impressively tall capping to top it off of light crispy brown foam thats a bit rough and tumbled. Kinda crunchy looking at first but developes into a moderately creamy bubbleness and density as it sits. It keeps well and stretches all sorts of wonderful lacing that looks of wet powdered sugar. Nice lofty aroma of cookie dough and spice. Crisp yet round with a full on malt tilt of breads and dark fruits. Mostly figgy, touch of raisin, perhaps some dates and molasses covering the big breadyness. Nice yeastyness to it which seems to be adding a root beerish type of hints to its dryness. Slender hops add some grassyness to its spicy complexity which included some anise, cinnamon, mint, and ginger cookies. Flavors are bold, lasting and carry alot of what the smell leads to with its big maltyness and yeastified balance. Firm grip of dark candish malts leads right in with a nice holiday cake-like dimension of figgyness first, then dark cherry, dates, chocolate covered raisins, and then the peppy spices. Notes of root beer, anise, pepper, carrot cake, and ginger make their way in and out of the malty doughy darkness but linger mostly across its finish with a slender, delicately woven dryness of grassy hops. Pretty damn solid! Perhaps not quite a match to the Abt 12, but damn if its not close! Feel is big, bold, and beautiful. The girth is massive in the body of this stuff. Heavy yet smooth, crunchy and crisp yet creamy with a whole lotta malts to create an exceedingly thick bread/cake-like structure of body. Not to mention the subtle details of yeasty play, dark fruity tang, perfectly intensed warmness, hoppy dryness, and spice. Which all lasts forever and a day the second it spills on to your palate. Wow! Great stuff! No big surprise really. St. B knows how to impress and this is perfect for the holidays!

Bottle. WOW! This beer is huge. I know that it is roughly the same alcohol % as the St B 12, but it has a bigger heavier mouthfeel to me, flavor overload. Aroma of dark fruit, cinnamon, spice, and alcohol. The flavor is a complex mix of all said aromas, very "full" tasting, heavy syrupy fruitiness and spice. It is very malty, but has a spice dryness always lingering along with the alcohol presence. This is an awesome Christmas Ale!

Another big thanks to beastiefan2k for sharing this one that for some stupid reason never got distributed to New York City... whatever, here it is. Deep brown beer with a soft orange ruby tint. Huge moussey sticky head that last all the way through the glass. Aroma is like all of the Bernardus beers, which is to say, amazing. Heavy fruitiness with cherry, plums all wrapped in a blanket of soft Belgian malts and milk chocolate. I’d say there is more fruitiness here than in the regular Bernardus 12, but all of the other components are there. Rich spicy yeast with a fruity complexity that is hard to describe accurately. Light clove/nutmeg and black pepper on the palate. The spiciness is accentuated when it’s cooler, but the fruit begins to dominate as the temperature increases. Lingering herbal/spicy finish. Excellent!

I really like this, although I am not sure if its better than the Abt 12. Yeasty sweetness and high carbonation is the same, but this brings some nutmeg spiciness to the table. On one hand, it makes for a great winter treat, but on the other I am not sure if I could drink it regularly. ABV is well hidden, and at only $10 a bottle its a steal!

Dried and ripe fruit, some carbonation, lots of raisiny rich mouth coating flavor. Good ale for the winter months, good ale period!