Crown Brewery Christmas Ale
The Hillsborough Hotel

Purchased at the brewpub where this ale was brewed, Hillsborough Hotel in Sheffield. This bottle-conditioned version was newly launched last year, along with three other products by this tiny brewery. BB 07/2008, served cool in a straight imperial pint glass.

A: pours a pitch black hue with a thin khaki foamy head that outlives the drink itself. Gorgeous...
S: fruity mustiness (cherry+apple+black-prune) with an astringent tart edge dominates the nose, along with dates, cloves, old wood, licorice, and a faint touch of sweet coffee... Almost like a Belgian Brown Ale mixed with a Stout added with a wee bit of spices.
T: the foretaste is musty-fruity, tart, as well as coffee-ish, featuring smoked black prunes, an incredible length of spices, licorice, then leading towards a semi-dry, chewy palate of plentiful hop bitterness hand in hand with the lingering aroma of woodiness and roastiness from dark malts.
M&D: this ale is like a cross b/w Old Ale and Porter to me, also reminiscent of the old-style English Imperial Russian Stout (e.g. Harvey's Le Coq), for the deep note and taste of tart mustiness from the wood barrels, but the input of spices is constantly there. All in all, this full-bodied spiced winter warmer is a very delicious one, with very soft carbonation, and a light palate to be really deceptively drinkable~~