Some times you just have to do things out of order.

Back in October I was contacted by Jordan a fellow beer blogger about brewing some beer with other local blog-ites during the Southern Ontario Brewers Learn 2 Brew day.  Since it is a Christmas Ale and I did enjoy the fruits of our labor last night I thought it only fair to jump ahead in my timeline to critique this brew today.  If you do the math you now know I am 57 posts behind what I am drinking today!!

All I can say about the beer was that it was damn good and better than I could have ever expected.  A true one of a kind beer since we changed the recipe on the fly and probably broke some cardinal brewing rules by not taking notes!  Ooops.

You can check out Brew day at the following links:

About the Beer – It poured really dark brown with a great mocha coloured head.  The aroma was of cinnamon and sweetness.  The flavour had a bold cinnamon hit right up front but mellows into some nice caramel/molasses notes.  I picked up some pine and bitterness right at the end.  Nowhere near as bitter as I was expecting after putting all those hops in!

Would I Drink it Again? – Yes, what a smooth and interesting beer.  I can’t take any real credit for it though since the recipe was Jordan’s (with some tweaks by Andrew) and most if not all of the brewing technique was done by Andrew.  Chris and I were more of the go crush some barley, wash out that pot, get rid of those grains kinda guys!  Although Chris sure knew how to explain the whole experience to any passer’s by.  I am officially dubbing Chris the “Marketing Guy” for the day!

We never really named the beer so I guess it will always go by Christmas Ale but apparently the beer is popular with the ladies!

Thanks again to Jordan for inviting me, Amsterdam for putting up with a bunch of brewers and the SOB’s for all the info.  I now feel prepared to try my next Home-Brew.