Thirsty Dog Brewing Company 12 Dogs of Christmas Ale

Well it’s Christmas time and yes this is a Christmas beer. This beer is 12 Dogs of Christmas Ale, 8.3% ABV, from the Thirsty Dog Brewing Company in Akron Ohio. This came to Brewpublik (www.brewpublik.com). Most of their beers are dog names and/or themed as is this one. 12 Dogs of Christmas Ale pours a deep caramel color with an almost two finger light beige head that thin but sturdy and stays there for a while. It does leave some nice lacing in the glass but that fades rather quickly. The aroma is much like the holiday season; there is toasted caramel with a bit of honey, cinnamon and a nice whiff of ginger and some faint nutmeg. There’s a whole heck of a lot going on with the aroma here. The taste is not as thick as you’d expect it to be. There is honey and cinnamon with a little bit of ginger and caramel but I didn’t get much nutmeg. It was sweet but not overly sweet. The mouth feel is light to medium leaning more towards medium with a nice holiday spiced finish and a sweet honey, cinnamon ginger after taste that slowly fades. Overall a good beer but I was expecting it to be richer and have a thicker mouth feel that is more porter of stout like, still it was more drinkable not being that way which helps. I give 12 Dogs of Christmas Ale a B. This is a beer I would come back to and recommend to others. It had a lot going on and all the flavors together didn’t hurt the overall taste of this beer. It a good Christmas beer that is worth celebrating the season with! Cheers! Please enjoy responsibly! Happy Holidays!!