Name: BrewDog Hoppy Christmas

Style: Pale Ale

Country: Scotland 

ABV: 7.2%

Beer description: BrewDog come to us from Scotland. They like to try to push flavours and pack their beers with as much as possible and try some interesting stuff. Compared to some breweries who try to push boundaries by adding weird and wonderful flavours to their beer, BrewDog tend to use more traditional ingredients and experiment using more traditional brewing methods. BrewDog can be a bit hit and miss, which is the risk they run with their general style, but when they’re good, they’re quite good. This is BrewDog’s Hoppy Christmas “festive” pale ale. Let’s see how Christmasy it gets…

There’s no Christmas spirit when pouring the beer: no Santa, no tree, no presents coming out of the bottle… it just looks like a normal pale ale at this point.

But, the smell of this beer does give a bit of Christmas! There’s a fruity sweetness to the smell of this beer that really feels like Christmas. It’s not quite exactly Christmas, but it reminds the drinker enough of the holiday season to make you think about it. In this way though, the aroma gets a bit confusing: the drinker immediately thinks of Christmas and it’s hard to say what smells are being imagined and what’s actually there. There are scents of cinnamon and other spices in there that add to the Christmas cheer, but are they real or imagined?

The Christmas Spirit is in the taste of this beer as well. There’s a certain creaminess about the beer and a general berry taste, almost giving the sensation of strawberries and cream. The spiciness sticks around as well with minimal bitterness at the end. While the term “hoppy” is usually associated with a bitter taste, hoppy can also be fruity, floral, spicy, or a myriad of other flavours. This beer isn’t so much hoppy bitter, the hoppiness is coming more from the fruit and spices.

It’s a pretty sweet beer too, which suits it as a Christmas style beer. But, the beer could use a bit more body, especially if it’s trying to be a winter pale ale – which is assumed seeing as it’s a Christmas style pale ale from the Northern Hemisphere.

But, it’s a pretty good beer, and a beer that can be enjoyed on Christmas Eve.

Let this one warm up a little bit before drinking. It gets better when served at cellar temperature.

Check out other pale ale reviews.

Check out other BrewDog reviews.