This would make me Merry at Christmas!

Now then.. this is much more like it...

First though let me first quickly remind you of my Christmas quest for a beer to help me fight my way through the turkey, sprouts, queens speech, Wizard of Oz (is it on this year?) and endless games of being cheated at Trivial Pursuit and Monopoly on December the 25th. So far I have tasted and tested Rosey Nosey and the somewhat better Wonkey Donkey. Both met some but not all of my criteria for a Christmas beer based on name or packaging, something that gives it that wintery difference and a bit of bite to see me through the big day.

I have to be honest and say I actually wanted to like this beer as it's from what is the nearest micro brewery to me. The brewery is based on a farm in the Yorkshire Wolds a stones throw from the North Sea (and my house). Based on a farm they use there own home grown barley and being on the Wolds chalk filtered water from there own borehole. Run by a small team including the owners, husband and wife team Tom and Gill Mellor, the brewery produces a number of cask and bottles ales. I first stumbled across the fact I had a micro brewery nearby when I started seeing their beer pop up in local farm shops and of all places garden centres. They must be doing something right as I have now seen the beer sold in chain supermarkets such as Proudfoot and ASDA but whether you will get that outside the Yorkshire region I don't know. As well as this they can be found selling there beers at local events such as farmers and Christmas Markets. You can also order the beer off the internet also and I will provide those details at the end of the review. The brewery also have an open day each summer which I keep promising but never quite get round to visiting each year.

Anyway back to the beer. First off it certainly passes the Christmas test in the naming and packaging. Previously called "Cracker Black" it was renamed this year simply to "Merry Christmas". Maybe a copout of a name but that's a tick for me. The label on the beer shows a Christmas pudding with cream on it topped by a bit of holly. Have a closer look though and the puddings the world with each country a splash of cream on it. Snow is falling onto it or again is that cream? So the name and bottle couldnt get much more Christmasy - so far so good. The bottle itself is 500ml and I bought a couple of bottles from different places, one at £1.95 and the other at £1.99.

So onto the tasting. The beer poured with a slight head. This soon disappeared but the beer was still lively enough and a quick twirl of the glass showed how lively it still was in the glass. The colour was a nice dark chocolate which showed up to be a dark ruby colour in the light. The bottle itself describes it as a "deep red hue". In the glass it looks dark and smooth.

I had mentioned in my previous two reviews on beer that despite reading up on the subject I hadn't really managed to detect anything during the "sniff" test on either. I know people smell all sort of things when doing this test, anything from different fruits to old socks but for me both previous bottles has smelt to me of, well, beer. A good wiff on this one hit me straight away though. It instantly reminded me of walking into a rum factory and the smell of molasses. Maybe even a scent of chocolate in there. And malty. Or am I now just taking this all too seriously and imagining things? Reading the website after the beer is made from roast Barley, pale chocolate malt, Progress and Styrian Goldings hops. So maybe I didn't imagine the chocolate after all.

After a couple of minutes the beer remained lively in the glass without being too fizzy. The taste also came through with a bit of alcohol bite that I tend to find in a strong Belgian beer without being in the leas bit unpleasant. Certainly enough taste to cut through the sprouts. It certainly hit me and no doubt the culprit for that was the 6% it weighs in at.

This beer is only available in October and January although the brewery's blog mentions due to its popularity they might make it into a year round beer. For me this is a beer for a dark and cold day or night and wouldn't be for me sat outside on a summer day as a session beer. Either way this is the best beer I have come across for my Christmas meal so far. The website describes it as follows and I don't think I can beat this description - "This is a winter beer that is ultimately best described as moreish!"

Whether a few more Christmas beers will pop up in the next couple of weeks to review remains to be seen. Either way I am visiting a Christmas market tomorrow and I think it would be rude not to stock up on a couple of these bottles - even if it doesn't win I will have something to look forward to on a cold night in January.

Web site - http://www.woldtopbrewery.co.uk
Merry Xmas - http://www.woldtopbrewery.co.uk/merrychristmas.html