Christmas Truce 1914
Two Sergeants Brewing

A fantastic exchange of fine beer making skills. Let's hope for more in the future. ESB and Marzen characterisitics amounting to one fine brew.

 

 

 

 

650ml bottle, a sort of surprise collaborative release from Two Sergeants and Brauerei Fahr, a couple of relative newcomers on the Alberta sudster scene. The reference here is to an unofficial ceasefire during WWI, where the Tommies and the Krauts took a week or so off from brutalizing each other, all in the name of their common holiday festivities. How special.

This beer pours a clear, dark orange-brick amber colour, with two zaftig fingers of puffy, finely foamy, and somewhat chunky beige head, which leaves some rocky coral reef lace around the glass as it lazily recedes.

It smells of bready and biscuity caramel malt, black pepper and other generic spices, some musty orange and red grapefruit rind, and a leafy, herbal, and grassy green noble hoppiness. The taste is grainy and doughy caramel malt, some apple and citrus fruitiness, a mild earthy yeast character, still muddled spicy notes, and a consistent herbal, dead leafy, and wet grassy hop bitterness.

The carbonation is fairly active in its supportive and tingly frothiness, the body a decent medium weight, and generally smooth, the various (otherwise pleasant) astringencies not preventing the emergence of a nice airy creaminess. It finishes off-dry, the biscuity graininess still the biggest game in town.

Overall, this is certainly one well-made version of the style, which definitely sports some English Isle influences - while ESBs are ales, and 'festbiers' are lagers, they do share a lot in common (yeast aside), which is patently obvious here. England meets Deutschland, and the result is a much more agreeable one - this time last year, I was slogging through a book called 'Silent Night', given to me by a well-intentioned loved one. I much, much prefer this.