St. Bernardus Christmas Ale

Brewed by St. Bernard Brouwerij
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Watou, Belgium

(Review written December 2008) 75cL bottle from The Lighthouse in Manchester, Maine. Pours a hazy but still translucent dark copper with a half inch of light tan head. Smells intensely fruity and spicy, with banana, nut, and chocolate notes. Tastes fruity, chocolatey, and spicy, with an underlying toastiness. Banana, nut, cherry, dates, and cloves all play nearly equal roles. On the heavier side of medium-bodied with ample carbonation. More of a sipper, though one sip most definitely invites another and this beer was gone long before I wanted it to be. Wow. Quite possibly the best beer this brewery makes, a phenomenal Christmas beer, and one of the most flavorful and complex beers I’ve had all year. Amazing!

A true belgian masterpiece! A rich, thick dark ale with a very complex aroma of roasted barley and a unique chocolate-caramel taste. A real winter warmer.

Style and Glass: Strong Dark Belgian Ale, Trappist ABV, Volume & Calories: 10 % in 22 fl oz. estimated at400 C Purchased at: Issac Newton’s, Newtown, PA for $18.00 Aroma: malty, sweet, inviting. Visuals: typical St. Bernardus label — neither inviting or not, like visiting an old friend, dark pour, thin head, opaque, dark body, red brown body, nice lace. Taste: amazingly balanced, deep flavors, overlapping influences, peach, banana, cinnamon, bitter hops, high strength. Palate: high quality, fruit juice texture, amazing, deep finish. Overall: delicious. An amazing treat. Beautiful, rich, and deep. A repeat when I can afford it. A high level favorite. medium value. high craft. Paired with a brownie and ice cream dessert — matched well in sweetness and contrast.

Deep and Dark with large tannish red head...strong fruity aroma ... the sweet fruity flavor balances out the alcohol and warming power... great Ale, not really sure what the difference is between this and the regular abt 12

Everything I would want out of a Belgian Christmas ale. I am tempted to call it a malt bomb, but everything meshes so well together that "bomb" would be a disservice.

Pours out a dark brown to settle a nearly mat black with a small sense of brownness to its body. Very heavy looking and an impressively tall capping to top it off of light crispy brown foam thats a bit rough and tumbled. Kinda crunchy looking at first but developes into a moderately creamy bubbleness and density as it sits. It keeps well and stretches all sorts of wonderful lacing that looks of wet powdered sugar. Nice lofty aroma of cookie dough and spice. Crisp yet round with a full on malt tilt of breads and dark fruits. Mostly figgy, touch of raisin, perhaps some dates and molasses covering the big breadyness. Nice yeastyness to it which seems to be adding a root beerish type of hints to its dryness. Slender hops add some grassyness to its spicy complexity which included some anise, cinnamon, mint, and ginger cookies. Flavors are bold, lasting and carry alot of what the smell leads to with its big maltyness and yeastified balance. Firm grip of dark candish malts leads right in with a nice holiday cake-like dimension of figgyness first, then dark cherry, dates, chocolate covered raisins, and then the peppy spices. Notes of root beer, anise, pepper, carrot cake, and ginger make their way in and out of the malty doughy darkness but linger mostly across its finish with a slender, delicately woven dryness of grassy hops. Pretty damn solid! Perhaps not quite a match to the Abt 12, but damn if its not close! Feel is big, bold, and beautiful. The girth is massive in the body of this stuff. Heavy yet smooth, crunchy and crisp yet creamy with a whole lotta malts to create an exceedingly thick bread/cake-like structure of body. Not to mention the subtle details of yeasty play, dark fruity tang, perfectly intensed warmness, hoppy dryness, and spice. Which all lasts forever and a day the second it spills on to your palate. Wow! Great stuff! No big surprise really. St. B knows how to impress and this is perfect for the holidays!

Bottle. WOW! This beer is huge. I know that it is roughly the same alcohol % as the St B 12, but it has a bigger heavier mouthfeel to me, flavor overload. Aroma of dark fruit, cinnamon, spice, and alcohol. The flavor is a complex mix of all said aromas, very "full" tasting, heavy syrupy fruitiness and spice. It is very malty, but has a spice dryness always lingering along with the alcohol presence. This is an awesome Christmas Ale!

Another big thanks to beastiefan2k for sharing this one that for some stupid reason never got distributed to New York City... whatever, here it is. Deep brown beer with a soft orange ruby tint. Huge moussey sticky head that last all the way through the glass. Aroma is like all of the Bernardus beers, which is to say, amazing. Heavy fruitiness with cherry, plums all wrapped in a blanket of soft Belgian malts and milk chocolate. I’d say there is more fruitiness here than in the regular Bernardus 12, but all of the other components are there. Rich spicy yeast with a fruity complexity that is hard to describe accurately. Light clove/nutmeg and black pepper on the palate. The spiciness is accentuated when it’s cooler, but the fruit begins to dominate as the temperature increases. Lingering herbal/spicy finish. Excellent!