{"id":6183,"date":"2012-06-26T08:00:56","date_gmt":"2012-06-26T13:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.guysdrinkingbeer.com\/?p=6183"},"modified":"2018-02-06T14:22:43","modified_gmt":"2018-02-06T20:22:43","slug":"from-the-cellar-goose-island-christmas-ale-2009-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.guysdrinkingbeer.com\/from-the-cellar-goose-island-christmas-ale-2009-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"From The Cellar: Goose Island Christmas Ale 2009 & 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"
Goose Island says:<\/p>\n
“Every year to celebrate the holiday season, we brew up our Christmas Ale, and with each year we change the recipe slightly so that you have something special to look forward to. Traditionally, our Christmas Ale is a complex brown ale that develops well in the bottle for<\/em> <\/a>Goose Island Christmas Ale<\/em> Ryan:<\/strong> At times we like to think of ourselves as rule breakers – the bad boys of beer cellaring, if you will. Sure, we have plenty of imperial stouts and barleywines in our cellar. But we’ve also been in the midst of a years-long Double IPA cellar experiment<\/a>. Yeah, we knew going in that cellaring IPA’s was sacrilege, but we wanted to give it a shot, to buck conventional wisdom and see what the hell happens when you cellar an obscenely hoppy beer. Pretty badass, right?<\/p>\n The reasoning behind cellar this beer, however, is about as vanilla as it gets; because the bottle says so. “Ages in the bottle for up to five years,” the back label tells me. Sure, a brown ale may not be a gut instinct cellaring choice, but if Goose Island says it can be done then we’re willing to give it a try.<\/p>\n So we sat down with a bomber of the 2009 and a 12 oz bottle of the 2011. A 2010 offering was absent because it took a year hiatus.<\/p>\n Both the 2009 & 2011 Christmas Ale’s poured a deep caramel in color with a thin, off white head that left spotty lacing behind with each sip. While the color did little to set these two apart, the aroma certainly did. The ’09 gave off a big Christmas cookie nose dominated by cinnamon, ginger, almonds and a touch of caramel. The ’11, on the other hand, was hop dominant with a piney hop presence reminiscent of a live Christmas tree .<\/p>\n The flavors of each beer were lock-step with the aromas. Dark fruits and butterscotch stole the show in the ’09 with a touch of citrus hops to round it out. The ’11 was far more hop forward with the citrus hops bursting up front followed by a smooth caramel-y finish.<\/p>\n Both of these beers were solid – not remarkable, but solid. The ’09 held up well after two years in the cellar. Well enough, in fact, that I decided to toss a 2011 bottle aside for a five-year vertical. Check back in 2016 for that one.<\/p>\n
\n up to five years.”<\/em><\/p>\n
\n American Brown Ale, 6.4% ABV<\/em><\/p>\n