Sly Fox Christmas Ale

Brewed by Sly Fox Brewhouse
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Royersford and Phoenixville, Pennsylvania USA

750 ml bottle. Pours an amber color with a thick foamy brownish beige head. Strong ginger aroma with hints of nutmeg and cinnamon. Taste is very gingery with hints of nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon. Not a big fan of these ginger flavored ales.

Amber brown with off-brown head. Big nose of all spice and ginger. Flavor is big on the spices, with a medium body. Very spicey, too much ginger for my taste, yet a very good spiced ale.

Medium brown body. Medium palate. Aroma is mostly caramel malt with a hint of cinnamon and cloves. Taste is sweet caramel malst with those same spices from the aroma showing up again. Not bad at all for a Christmas brew.

2006 Bottle: Poured amber with an off white head. Aroma, caramel malts, fruity, some spices. Flavor, caramel, brown sugar, some spices, and fruits to it. Pretty solid.

From a 750mL Bottle, 2006 Vintage. Obtained in a trade with TomDecapolis; thanks, Tom! Wow, they sure weren’t taking any chances on bottling oxidation with this one; before opening, there was maybe a millimeter of clearance between the beer level and the bottom of the cork, which was also very difficult to remove. Mild gushing upon opening. Pours a transparent ruby mahogany color with a massize layer of overcarbonated, fizzy ivory head. That’s a lot of Christmas spice; unmistakable blast of ginger and nutmeg, heavy on the ginger. Spices, spices and more spice. This beer definitely didn’t set out to demonstrate the warning, "if you can specifically identify it, you used too much." Almost a hint of smokey molasses to suggest a gingerbread cookie, but other than that, it smells just like the list: ginger, clove, all spice, cinnimon, and nutmeg. Medium bodied, heavily carbonated mouthfeel. Excessively dry on the palate, with some herbal astringency to supplement the spice. Some dark malt tannins with a hint of toasted raisin. A wave of buttery diacetyl completely destroys the back end of the palate, rendering the rest of the bottle unfinishable. I wasn’t really picking it up at first in the nose, but it’s unmistakable on the palate. Now honed in, it becomes clearer in the aroma as well behind the spice brigade. Too bad, as it is otherwise perfectly drinkable, albeit overly spiced. No.

2006 bottle: Pours with a big head that stays awhile. Beer looks pretty good in the glass. THe aroma has alot of nutmeg and spice. Tastes like most other winter beers. lots of spice and nutmeg. All and all not a bad one from slyfox

2006 bottle: Pours with a big head that stays awhile. Beer looks pretty good in the glass. THe aroma has alot of nutmeg and spice. Tastes like most other winter beers. lots of spice and nutmeg. All and all not a bad one from slyfox

2006 Belgian-style 750, purchased at Royerford brewpub. Lees in bottle. Liquid is all the way up to the cork with no head space... not even a tiny bubble. Beer is enormously carbonated and requires several tiny pours over 5+ minutes for one-quarter of a tulipful. Smokey red with a beige airy head that will not collapse. Strong bouquet of clove/nutmeg/allspice. Metallic, peppery, and anise/marigold Fuggle-y background aromas. Initial sweet flavor evokes wildflower honey; fruitiness follows with plum, fig, raisin, and cranberry. Some buttery notes suggest diacetyl. Light, airy palate. Nearly bone dry finish boasts tooth-dissolving tannins, gratingly intense like fingernails on a blackboard. Aftertatse: tingly, bittersweet, highly phenolic and earthy, mulled wine. Overall like Orval with spiciness in lieu of brettanomyces. Strange. Spices are overdone. However, the sweet/dry contrast, fruit/phenol, and frothy carbonation remind me of biere de garde.