A Joyus Holiday Beer

Ah, the ghosts of Christmases Past.  I have not had a Belgian Christmas beer in a long time, and searching through old blog posts I found that I have not had St. Bernardus Christmas Ale since 2009.  I did not know when I finished the old post with "it's a Christmas beer I will be revisiting," that it would take nine years for me to come back to St. Bernardus Christmas Ale.  It should be an annual tradition to retry this masterpiece of a beer.

The beer poured a clear, dark mahogany, a color which leaned more towards red than brown.  It had a ring of cream colored foam that stayed to the edge of the class, and sparse, dripping lacing.  Christmas Ale's aroma was sweet and spicy with notes of dark berries and cherries.  When drinking Christmas Ale, I caught tastes of candied dark dried fruit, cherries, caramel, and molasses, which are many of the flavors that as an adult you associate with the holidays.  The sweetness was almost syrupy, but did not become cloying.  There were brief suggestions of cough syrup, but I found this as a positive feature that provided cover to mask the booze, and at a 10% abv Christmas Ale's alcohol stayed reserved and behaved.  For a high alcohol beer, it seemed light on the palate.  The carbonation was soft and helped smooth out the beer, which had a long, dessert-like finish.

Christmas Ale, in short, was a delight.  I had it in a small glass, which was just the right amount.  Slogging through a full-sized bottle, even if done over several hours, would have dulled the beer's brilliance.  In a year that saw so many bland hazy IPAs, Christmas Ale snapped me back to the realty of what real flavor and thought can to do in the hands of a master brewer.  Happy New Year!