Breckenridge Brewing, Christmas Ale

It's Saturday, so what is more appropriate than drinking and appreciating some solid craft beer? Now that Thanksgiving has passed I can feel fully comfortable buying Christmas beers, which is always exciting. I found a single bottle of Breckenridge Brewing's Christmas Ale for a couple bucks and decided to start off the holiday season with it.

This beer poured a dark amber color with a pretty thin layer of white head on top. The head dissipated pretty quickly, and left a very thin, whispy head on top throughout the tasting. There was a medium amount of lacing on the sides of the glass.

I didn't feel like the aroma of this beer gave off much complexity. I felt like the caramel malt dominate the bouquet of this brew. There was a lot of sweetness from the malt and I got a good amount of earthiness from the hops.

Breckenridge's Christmas Ale tasted the same way it smelled. On my initial taste I got a lot of sweetness from the malt, which was evened out nicely as the tasting proceeded by the earthiness and bite of the hops. The hops added a medium bite near the end of the tasting. The malt definitely dominated the initial tasting of this beer, but I thought it was well balanced as the tasting proceeded.

This beer had a good amount of carbonation that gave it a bubbly mouth feel and a medium body. My issue with this beer was the after taste. I felt like the earthiness of the hops was a little to dominant in the after taste. I found it kind of unpleasant. There was a little bit of sweetness from the malt but it disappeared rather quickly leaving the earthy bitterness on its own.

Overall I didn't really prefer this brew. I was expecting a lot more from the taste since it's labeled as a Christmas beer. It felt more like an amber to me. I didn't really pick up any Christmas spices or other flavors that are characteristic of Christmas beer. Given the other beers I've had from Breckenridge, I was kind of disappointed. That's not to say I wouldn't drink this beer again, because I would. I was more disappointed because this beer doesn't really live up to is label as a Christmas beer in my opinion.

I have some exciting beers on deck this week, as well as a review of the Summit Brewery tour and tasting in order as I'm going up to Minneapolis this weekend for the Broncos/Vikings game. (No I'm not a Tebow fan, I'm an actual Broncos fan.) Cheers!