Kooinda / Sideshow Decembeer
Kooinda Boutique Brewery

Pours dark copper with a large fading head.
Nose shows cloves, cinnamon and cardamon. Also sweet caramel and some raisins.
More spices and herbal notes as flavours, with accompanying cinnamon and nutmeg astringency. Some sweet malt too. A little sultana-like christmas cake notes too.
Carbonation is too high, body too watery.

640ml brown bottle purchased from Slowbeer by my brother and given to me for Xmas. 2013 vintage—I don't think there's been any others yet, but there may be in the future.

Pours a very hazy, and quite thick pudding brown with a fine, slightly bubbly head of off-white. Carbonation is very low, but it's interesting enough.

Nose is heavily spiced. Stacks of nutmeg, and certainly notes from the dried fruits, with a piquancy probably attributable to the orange peel. Slight marzipan character noticeable as well. Yeah, it pretty much matches up with the description on the bottle, which is worth something.

Taste is quite spicy, lacking sweetness and richness, which means that the sharper notes are very dominant: orange peel and cinnamon come through a lot, and pierce any deeper notes that come through. More of that marzipan towards the back, and a finish that's really quite medicinal. The same aromatics are there but it makes it all a bit weird.

Feel is actually pretty solid and heavy, but without the sweetness in the body, it feels very strange to me.

Overall, there was a pretty decent spice blend created here, but the beer ultimately didn't quite support it enough. There are plenty of positive things about this beer, but I found it a little bit tough to slug through by the end of the glass.