Jovie Christmas Ale
Props Brewery & Tap Room

Floridian Christmas Ale pours a dark dark amber color which hints at the flavors awaiting your first sip. The head quickly dissipates to just some wispy fingers of head on the sides of the glass. The first sip gives you a pop of burnt toast, raisin, coffee which quickly yields to cinnamon and all spice. Like a mince meat pie. The mouth feel is as clean as a dark Mexican lager. Highly drinkable but still fully providing a nice Christmas ale flavor. I feel like if Samichlaus went to the beach and ent on a beach body diet, this would be the result. No

Christmas in the panhandle of Florida is different than Christmas in the rest of the world. And their beer takes on a different demeanor as well.

Golden amber and with a slight orange tint, Jovie pours with a medium dense skirt of froth. Lightly hazy the ale releases a moderate host of holiday spice. Remiss of apple pie, its scent is lighlty caramelized with a toasty and nutty background. Caramel, pecan and honey add a malt inspired medley to give the ale a sweet start.

Its sweetness relaxes slowly over the middle palate and its spices take center stage. Nuances of cinnamon, ginger and clove provide an allspice culmination on taste but its the liberal use of nutmeg that provides its fragrant, nutty, smooth and nearly vanilla-like toastiness to command the taste. Lightly hopped, the finish is pleasantly sprucy with pepper and toast resonating late.

Medium bodied, the beer's constrained spices still stand out because the beer's body is meant for drinkability and not for richness. A linger of spice leaves an aura of potpourri wafting about the senses.