Henderson County
West Sixth Brewing Company

Updating their Christmas Ale, the spicy, malty and robust taste that usually takes on gingerbread proportions takes on the spicy sweetness of rum and oak for a trip down the notorious pirate history that Henderson County, Kentucky holds.

Henderson County pours a dark bark brown hue; one that casts a creamy, tarnish and lacy froth. Bold spices greet the nose with Christmas candle tendencies and a backbone of toast, fruitcake and sweet impressions. It taste is malty and toasty sweet with molasses, honey, sorghum and cola.

Malt flavors drift from robust sweetness to a toasty arena of gingerbread, burnt toast, bittersweet chocolate, coffee, walnut and syrup to a spicy middle palate of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, vanilla and clove. All the while, that underlying toasted breadiness of gingersnaps and coffee garner the flavor spread. A late followup of dark fruit brings a fruitcake presence to life with plum. cherry and grape.

Full bodied, sweet and spicy, the beer's rum influence plays sharply and deeply, slicing and dicing the sweet malts with pepper, cinnamon and brandy-like spice. A long sweet and spicy balance is less reliant on hop bitterness as the booze and spice act as balancing agents with a long glowing after palate of rum, gingerbread and cola.