Beer Advent Calendar Window Four

I fear people will start wondering why I started this if this continues. This is forming into a quest come vendetta against people who don’t produce exactly what I would like at Christmas. As I begun by saying though, seasonal beer mustn’t simply be regular beer in a shinier package. It mustn’t be the same old recipe with a few cinnamon sticks thrown in. Nobody wants to be the X Factor winner of the piece, thrown on television every Christmas because it was number one then even though it has no relation to talking snowmen, miracle working Jews or robins sat on post boxes.

Brouwerij Huyghe’s La Mere Noel (8.5%) is probably the greatest disappointment of this increasingly crusade like calendar thus far. For the makers of Delirium to produce this is slanderous. I originally considered pairing this with the Delirium Noel (shock insight into one of the more predictable offerings behind one of these windows) to compare and contrast, but didn’t as I’m still feeling ill and could only face one forced beer.

Taste descriptions are futile in this instance. Yes it’s a clear golden honey with big Belgian frothiness. It smells of blonde Belgian yeast mixed in with dirty dish water. It tastes fine. Average. The sort of beer I would have enjoyed in 2005 when my head was first turned to continental offerings. If yesterday’s offering was nothing more than an atypical, poor bottled British beer, this is the Belgian equivalent. I haven’t even mentioned the cringe inducing label that would make the brewers of Top Totty bury their faces. It’s not even mentioned on the brewery’s website. Surprise surprise.

Enjoy with: The Grinch and start considering that he had the right idea.

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