Liquid Ginger Bread

It seems like a veritable age since I wrote tasting notes about a beer I brewed, but in the spirit of better late than never, here is a picture of my Christmas spiced amber ale. I called this particular brew Biere d'épices, roughly translated from French as Spiced Beer, a play on the French for gingerbread, pain d'épices.

My intention with this beer was to make a Christmas beer which wasn't too heavy and cloying, but still have those classic Christmassy flavours, cinnamon, clove, ginger and sweet orange peel were all thrown into the boil. The hops were from France, Strisselspalt, a low alpha acid hop which I would needs tons of if I wanted to create a hop bomb version of this beer, but I like a variety of flavours in my beer instead of having my tongue stripped bare.

So on to my Cyclopic notes:

• Sight - dark amber to red, light tan head
• Smell - gingerbread, mild orange
• Taste - biscuity with jammy blackberry notes and a dry finish
• Sweet - 3/5
• Taste - 1.5/5

This was a very subtle beer, with lots of flavours and aromas knocking around. The body was medium and the finish as well as being dry left a warming alcoholic glow. One of the inspirations for the beer was growing up in Germany and going to the Christmas markets every year, Biere d'épices brought all those memories flooding back.

PS - don't forget, if you are taking part, to brew your American Pale Ale this weekend as part of the International Home Project.