Sunday, December 20, 2009

The Second Beer of Christmas

For the second beer of Christmas our true love gave to us Rogue's Santa's Private Reserve Ale. In the spirit of full disclosure, we have a bit of a love affair for the Rogue brews. We also have a thing for red ales. Forgive us for getting red in the cheeks over Santa's Reserve.

Santa's Reserve is a double hopped red ale. The body is a red that even Saint Nick would envy and the head carries a copper-hue. The flavor is quite flowery and malty with a uniquely "hoppy spruce finish" - though we are more inclined to call it a pine flavor on the back end. We made it clear yesterday that the 7 brews should be unique and Santa's finish fills the bill. It's thick and chewy but easy to drink. Yesterday, we sang the chorus of the 22 ounce bottle - today we wish the bottle was larger.

We find Santa's Reserve particulary suited to wrapping presents. Of course, if you're a real man you haven't started your holiday shopping yet. You enjoyed Santa's Reserve after a long day of shoveling snow and watching football - really bad football, which makes us grateful this holiday season for not being a sports blog.


4 comments:

T.J. said...

Gheorghe enjoys this concept...

rob said...

huzzah. i quite enjoyed brooklyn's winter ale this weekend, though i'm not sure it qualifies for inclusion in this list.

jerome said...

You would be surprised at what qualifies for inclusion on our list.

rob said...

just picked up 6 individually packaged santa's reserves for taste testing. thanks for the recommendation.