Piece Festivus

Brewed by Piece Brewery & Pizzeria
Style: Belgian Ale
Chicago, Illinois USA

Light brown and tan headed with a yeasty aroma backed by earthy & herbal hop scents. The flavor is sweet caramel with a peppery spiciness and is fairly bitter from the hops, leaving a lingering bitter finish. An odd kind of a Beligian Ale, but a decent enough brew.

<font size=-4><a href=http://www.ratebeer.com/events-detail.asp?eve & Winter Beer Tasting at Delilah’s, Chicago, IL 12/10/2005<font size=-1>

I drank this beer for the rest of us.. at Piece. Poured a deep, healthy brown with a short-lived cap of beige head. The aroma picked up chocolate, caramel, and dark fruits with more than ample spicage.. dark overall and very seductive.. more chocolate emerged with warmth. The flavor had floral bitterness and peppery spicage over a sweet caramel, molasses, and chocolatey base.. spicy, warm finish.. very good! Thick and spicy on the palate with nice balance and some warmth at the end. Good one!

Ahh...a spiced holiday ale! Very interesting and possessing a little more complexity of flavors than Piece's other beers. Surprising is the level of hoppiness, but the spices (pepper, cloves) are to be expected. Give Piece some credit that you can actually taste some spice in this - many brewers are too stingy with such ingredients. Tad chewy.

on tap at piece, pours reddish brown with white head. nose of cloves and dark fruits. flavor is malty with tobacco and caramel while being nicely spiced of cloves. smooth mouth feel. exactly what an ideal christmas beer is, dark spiced belgian ale, creamy and extremely drinkable. no spices used in this beer? wow, i can’t believe it. perhaps a blend of belgian and weizen yeast. i’d love to drink a few of these and air the grievences for a while. i’ve got a lot of problems with you people and now is the time you hear them!

Strong aroma of cloves and nutmeg. Yeasty tartness and caramel/toffee malt with a decent shot of citrus hopping to bitter it up. I liked this one, despite having the worst service of my life in any establishment in history the last time I was here!

Draught at brewery. With the 10th rating, I get to put this brew on the map. Firstly, I’d like to say that it is underrated. I didn’t know what style this was when I rated it, but detected some Belgian yeast. I also noticed some wheat/banana notes in the nose, otherwise, the aroma was fairly faint. Piece apparently specializes in heavily hopped ales and in wheat beers. As such, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise to have a Belgian ale with some wheat character. Fully opaque body with a thin, light tan head. Initial mouthfeel is a little unfocused and alcoholic. This is a nice brew; warming. I chose well.

Deep opaque, purple with a dark, slightly fluffy tan head. The aroma is malty sweet and moderately spicy. Caramel, chocolate, clove, grains of paradise, raisin, ginger and some ripe apple esters. The hops come out much more as the beer warms. The body is full and smooth with soft carbonation, one of the better mouthfeels, in my opinion. The sweet malt is fairly dominate, yet the warm alcohol and spice heat up the end, meshing with the hops to create a fairly bitter ending. Some Belgian-esque character from the yeast and malt with fairly Americanized liberal spicing. A pretty tasty and drinkable holiday beer. Something I would only drink one of per session, but not terrible.

Draught [2003 version]: dark red amber, wonderfully creamy off white, tight-bubbled foam. A bright, yeasty effervescence full of green apples, grain and cloves. The strong yeast in the aroma transforms into a large spiciness on the tongue - fresh cracked pepper, more cloves. . . a tasty grainy malt comes into play at the end, adding something special to an interesting brew. . . there are also some interesting fruits in the finish: red apples, some sort of citrus, maybe an apricot, and something bitter - honey? Also had a wonderful tingly mouth-feel and though it was served close to freezing, warmed into a charming brew.