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Great Lakes Christmas Ale

Great Lakes Christmas Ale

Rated 3.538 by BeerPals
No Image Available

Brewed by Great Lakes Brewing Company

Cleveland, OH, United States

Style:  Spiced Beer

7.5% Alcohol by Volume

30 International Bittering Units

Availability of this beer is unknown


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A holiday ale brewed with honey and spiced with fresh ginger and cinnamon.

ID: 4403 Last updated 1 week ago Added to database 23 years ago

Key Stats

97
percentile

0

Drunk

42

Reviews

0

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Statistics

Overall Rank3786
Overall Percentile96.5
Style Rank66 of 1941
Style Percentile96.6
Lowest Score2.1
Highest Score4.9
Average Score3.576
Weighted Score3.538
Standard Deviation0.559

Rating Distribution

Beer vs Style

42 Member Reviews

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THEBEERLOVER 67 reviews
rated 4.5 19 years ago

Aroma: 9 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 9

Great Lakes Christmas Ale is a really wonderful, rich, malty, warming brew spiced with ginger and honey. It is perfect for sipping during the holidays, and the cold winter months. Christmas Ale pours to a beautiful, opaque caramel color with a nice white head and a soft carbonation. The nose on this beer is wonderful. Really big sweet caramel malt aromas marry with some ginger spice character, and peppery hints of alcohol. The palate is rich, and delicious. More big sweet malt flavor, a touch of toffee, a hint of chocolate, and traces of honey flavor. Honey gives this beer a nice warming alcohol boost, but in general honey really doesn't impart all that much flavor to a beer. The body is hefty, and slightly syrupy. This beer finishes with more sweet malt up front, then ends with some nice ginger spice and a warming, high octane burn. This is a fantastic winter warmer. I would match this beer with desert. It would work well with mince meat pie, or ginger bread men. I look forward to this beer every Christmas. This beer is hard to find, it can only be found in Great Lakes market, which is a few Midwestern states. So if your lucky enough to get Great Lakes beers, keep a eye out for this one.

  • SLEDUTAH 11638 reviews
    rated 3.4 3 weeks ago

    Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 8

    12oz bottle from SS 2011, thanks
    Appearance: Clear amber with a small off-white head and good lacing
    Aroma: Toasted malts, cinnamon, ginger and other Christmas spices
    Taste: Christmas spices and sweet caramel
    Nice, all those great Christmas aromas in a bottle.

  • IBREW2OR3 11571 reviews
    rated 4.0 3 weeks ago

    Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 9

    12 oz bottle. Yet another tasty one courtesy of crizay, thanks again. This beer poured a gold to copper color with white head. The aroma has some sweet malts and cinnamon. The flavor seems complex. I taste a couple malt variations, a bright cinnamon note, some sweet citrus and lighter notes of honey and ginger.

  • CHEAP 1118 reviews
    rated 2.5 3 weeks ago

    Aroma: 4 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 4 | Overall: 5

    Nice beery aroma. Orange yellow appearance with a fading creamy head. Good creamy carbonation. Rather fruity and mild. Well behaved and pretty well mannered. Burping pine tree needles. Overall not bad for a Great Lakes brew.

  • STANG 237 reviews
    rated 3.3 9 years ago

    Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 5 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

    Pours a deep golden color with a thin, white head. Not much there on the nose, but the taste is sweet with a fairly solid malt backbone. Caramel and cinnamon are primary with hints of other spices. None are overwhelming, which I like. Solid for the style.

  • THIRSTYONE 563 reviews
    rated 3.9 10 years ago

    Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

    Beerfest 3 oz sample, had a nice aroma and color. One of the best tasting Christmas Beers i have had.Some seem to be over cloying and over spiced. This was not . An excellent sample i would love to have again.

  • RICHSBEER 1967 reviews
    rated 3.7 12 years ago

    Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

    pours a nice dark amber, with a nice white head that sticks around for a while. The aroma of honey and cinnamon great the nose, and tempt the tastebuds. The taste is excellent with a rich spicy tones, with decent carbonation, with a hoppy finish. This is an excellent Christmas Ale, perfect for cold winter days in Ohio.

  • HEYBEERMAN 1025 reviews
    rated 3.3 13 years ago

    Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

    Holy ginger, it does have a spicy christmas nature to it. The ginger makes it smell like a christmas candle instead of a beer but still, not bad. The flavor is more ginger, not bad, but then a terrible weed-like bitterness on the back end and in the aftertaste. Something worth trying.

  • THOMASSOVA4 1038 reviews
    rated 4.0 14 years ago

    Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

    I got this beer as a house-warming gift from my new neighbor in Roanoke. This beer was very nice - I enjoyed it. It has a nice herbal aroma and is generally well spiced. The beer has a full body and warms quite well. I think this may be the best Holiday Beer of 2010.

  • SHREWS824 218 reviews
    rated 3.8 14 years ago

    Aroma: 9 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

    Very nice clear amber with burnt orange and yellow highlights around the bottom. Slight off white head was thick and full of small bubbles. Great bit of retention and plenty of lacing for me to enjoy. Smells of ginger bread cookies and cinnamon. Brown sugar and touches of honey. I even picked up hints of sweet molasses. Really picking up the ginger and cinnamon with the first couple of sips. The cinnamon comes on stronger as the beer glides across the tongue to the throat. Hints of alcohol start to pick up as I drink. Only traces of honey in the taste. This beer is really sweet!!!! Medium to medium/thin mouthfeel that was mostly dry. The alcohol bite stands out and gives it not quite as smooth a finish as I like. Very warming however. This brew is a pretty good "warmer." Definitely captures the Christmas feel. May be a bit too sweet for me to enjoy all night, but would be acceptable in small doses.

  • JBROWNING 117 reviews
    rated 4.3 15 years ago

    Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 9

    This beer has a spicy aroma with undertones of ginger and clove. The taste is complex with clove, mace, ginger, honey and citrus. This beer gets better the more you drink it and let the flavors spread over the tongue. Another great offering from the Great Lakes Brewing Company.

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