Gales Christmas Ale

Formerly brewed at Gales
Style: English Strong Ale
Horndean, England

Bottle: Real fruity aroma with apple and raison. Transparent amber with a white head. Very strong raison presence in the flavor. Too strong with the raison. Some apple and caramel. Has a sour taste that lingers in the background that is rather unpleasant.

An unclear brown beer with a disappearing head. The aroma is dusty combined with overripe fruits and berries. The flavor is like the aroma with a very dry background.

2002 vintage: Smell is all sorts of complex. Wood, anise, ginger, plum, clove, fig, chocolate and molasses to name a few. Appearnace is a robust red with not a lick of head. The mouthfeel is interesting to say the least. Similar to the jubilee ale, its all over the place. Taking a slow sip, before it even hit my mouth it had a smokey, fruit presence. Then it hit my lips with a subtle sweetness, then a solid bitterness that leaves the mouth with a warm malt flavor. Quite a beer, with a lot going on in it.

[corked 9.3 oz. bottle - 2003 vintage] Cloudy amber color with a very small white head. Very complex aroma. Citrus, alcohol, green apples, spice, yeast and malt. Slight hints of bourbon at the end. Rather light flavor for the aroma, mainly of apples, yeast, sweet malt and alcohol with a dry and sticky finish and a warm, lingering aftertaste of malt mixed with a touch of lemon.

Is a 9.3 oz. bottle ever worth $4.39 per, as I paid for it? Well, you never know, and that’s the curse of the quest, the downside of trial and error, sometimes you try and you erred...This is my first sample, the 2003 edition, with jolly old St. Nick holding a chalice of ale aloft on the label, with a beatific smile on his cherubic countenance...is it this brew that brings such bliss about? Let us see! Appearance: pours out a beautiful, bright cherry red color, with a thick, frothy, light tan-toned head of foam atop, which stays awhile before dwindling off. Aroma: unusual, at the start. Arousing at first, lovely, heady and deep, with flowering fruitiness, sharp green apple foremost, plus citrus, grape, very rich and ripe. Taste: those fruity flavors return on the palate, with apple still predominant, with it gets mixed-up, maybe even coagulated, and tossed among other sensations also, some woodiness, a bit of nuts, something wholly foreign to a typical beer experience, especially from an English brewery. Toward the end, too, the alcohol content starts to kick and thoroughly coats the mouth, stick on the palate good and will not quit. Body is near-to -full, finish is medium, and propelled by that appley taste. Not what I look for in a Christmas-type of brew (what is that, though, anyway?), and I can’t say that I was altogether thrilled by the peculiar flavor, but an admirable oddity is how I’ll put it. Worth over $4 for under 10 oz.? Oh, no! [ edit your

2001 vintage. Opened the cork and it smelled like a thick syrupy bourbon. It poured into the glass with no head... just a few large bubbles atop a slightly cloudy light brownish orange. Aroma in the glass was more apple with a slight "gueuze-like" yeasty lemon feel to it, along with some kind of a sugary cask and spice hints. Light and slightly watery flavor. I pick up a slight lemon, spicy oak, and.... I don’t know what else. Not bad... just different.

(2001 Vintage) Wow, what a holly booze bouquet coming out of my glass. This beer first smells like Calavados, but the booze fades to apples. The beer has zero head and hardly any carbonation. The palette is full, sweet, and vinous. The palate taste like a cross between a slab of iron and sherry. Too weird and maybe too old for my liking.

Aroma of warm sweet rolls, very pleasant. A hint of fruitiness as well. Very ugly brown color, cloudy. No head at all. Tastes of hops, very rich, with a hint of apple. Lingering taste of a strong mint.