Gales Christmas Ale

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

275ml bottle. Pours brown with a small head. Aroma is sweet and syrupy, very fruity. Not bad. Taste is bad. Sour, old, flat red wine. My third Gales drain pour in one night. I guess all the bottles were just terribly old and didn’t hold up like they were supposed to.

9.3 oz, 2002 vintage. Mostly uncloudy dark brown with red highlights and no head. Aroma is mostly malt vinegar with some spiced rum and raisins. Taste is mostly tart fruit and malt vinegar; slight hop aftertaste. Even though it is corked like a wine bottle, I wouldn’t recommend keeping this beer any longer unless you’re one who likes a flat beer with strong acetic acid tastes akin to Rodenbach Grand Cru. Rating would be lower, but I am giving the benefit of the doubt that this was once at least an OK beer.

So these nice guys at New Beers Distributors (New York) covered the production year with a price tag…
Never mind; Vintage 2001, 5+ years old, classic Gale’s corked bottle
The cork is of very good quality, well preserved, and with a very nice aroma of fruity malt; pours a cloudy amber color; there is still some carbonation but not much head retention.
The room is pervaded by the strong aroma: malt, sweet, raisins, spices… in line with a Christmas pudding, but more elegant than other beers.
Probably the age has cut down the sugars, the body has a good structure but it’s not too sticky; the dominant flavor is caramel, with malt and raisins, a bit woody, and fruity; the alcohol is warming the mouth, another sign of age. The final shows an increasing bitterness, with caramel and a light oaky sourness.
Beatifully aged; complex; pleasant.

[9.3oz bottle - Johns market] A deep hazy brown with floaters. A weak small head. There was a strong aroms of alcohol and a deep malty finish. This was a good brew once but it did not make it long. 4 years later this beer lost the flavor and become very stank.

The 9.3 ounce bottle poured a hazy brownish amber beverage with no head whatsoever and, thus no lacing. The aroma had a tinge of metallic and medicinal characters imbedded in the spicy and fruity background. The body was full with no carbonation and an arid texture. The flavor starts out very acetic-tart. The finish was fairly long with an unpleasant astringent taste and alcohol burn. The combined facts that this beer has been "retired", was flat, smelled off, and tasted bad leads me to believe it has gone bad in the bottle.

9.3 oz bottle. Murky brown cider with tiny tan floaties. No head. Orange pomander, nutmeg and scotch. Muddy, day-old mulled wine with no carb. Woody drying leads to a metallic sour; tending to vinegar. Label looks faded so this is probably past its prime.

9.3 oz. bottle. 2001 Edition. I like the bottle very much. Nice, thick brown glass that feels substantial in the hand. The Nast-styled Santa on the label is neat as well. As for the beer, it poured a deep, nealry opaque, cloudy mahogony with no head and virtually no carbonation. Looks more like a barley wine than an ale. A few swirls of the tulip glass released strong aromas of prunes, dates, and molasses. After inhaling these wonderful aromas, I was expecting a rich, full-bodied brew. The first sip was instead a bit of a disappointment. The flavors were not nearly as prevalent as the aromas. There was more of a sherry flavor to the beer that I hadn’t noticed in the aroma. There was also a mustiness lurking in the background as well. The dark fruits and molasses were pretty much nonexistent in the flavor. Thin bodied with a definite long alcohol burn at the finish. Glad I tried it since I see it is retired, but I am not going back for another.

9.3oz. bottle, date seemingly absent. Peculiar musty, fruity aroma, lightly floral, tart and sweet with notes of brown sugar, apple, cherry and orange and lemon zest, as well as a certain faint spiciness, pine and something deep in the background reminiscent of candle wax and vinyl. Deep orange color, thoroughly hazy and sedimented with a slight, fine, uneven head. Flavor is sweet, vinous, rather tart and spicy, with some cidery and peppery alcohol character becoming apparent, alongside hints of sherry, suggesting this is not a new release. Smooth and thin on the palate with a degree of warmth and a fairly full body. Better as it approaches room temperature, in my opinion. Still, there is no doubt this was unexpected.