Day 2 of the 3rd Annual Advent-ure Calendar
Day 2: Royal Docks Brewing Co. Yuletide
We are all so excited about this beer because honestly, the can is awesome. It might be the best holiday can out there. Royal Docks is a fairly new beer around here, but it’s in Canton so still local. We haven’t had too many of their beers but from what we’ve tried they’ve has been good. From their website Yuletide is ” our holiday seasonal is a big, sweet, spiced ale with a pleasant spicy flavour and aroma that is at once present but not overwhelming. The deep copper hue and fluffy white head is perfectly presented garnished with a spring of freshly cut rosemary, which imbues the nose with a fleeting whiff of pine before the richness of the beer reaches your palate.”
REFLECTIONS
Beard & Broad
Beard: Holy holiday crap is this beer exactly what it says it is: Holiday Spice. It tastes like a holiday cookie with a bunch of nutmeg and maybe some citrus zest? The flavors are just a bit too overpowering for me but I respect what they were going for. And they just knocked it out of the park with this packaging: the name, ugly glittery sweater, and even the history of King Wenceslas. Not my favorite holiday beer, but dammit if they didn’t do a good job convincing me it should be.
Broad: This beer is…a lot to handle.The smell is overpowering, it’s VERY sweet smelling. There are way too many flavors floating around in this. I taste cloves, maybe oranges, nutmeg, and eery other holiday spice. It tastes like a carbonated Christmas wreath dipped in a honeypot and topped with nutmeg.
Adam & Alex
Adam: Man Yuletide has such a festive can but it is cloyingly sweet. Way too many spices. Feels like someone was like, “what if we also throw cloves in!?” Alex nailed it. It’s alcoholic soda.
Alex: This tastes like an alcoholic Dr. Pepper. There are too many spices in this one for me. However the can is top notch, Ugly Christmas sweater for the win!
Scott & Christa
Scott: Serious question, what’s a Yuletide? I really have no idea but it’s a word used every holiday and I accept it. ANYWAYS, this beer tastes like a Hallmark movie. I’ll love drinking it all season long but no way I open this up on the 26th. This beer has a ton of pleasing spices in both taste and smell and would love to try it on draft, in a glass with a cinnamon rim.
Christa: This beer tastes and smells like a Christmas tree. So much spruce!! Little full, lotta sap.
Tony & Megan
Tony: Kind of like the ugly Christmas sweater on the can, this one is kinda strange but kinda fun and unique. It has a very pine like aroma, which for a holiday beer definitely works but this one is teetering on the border of nice pine scent and Pinesol. The taste is unique. You get blasted with spices right off the bat and there is an element of pine I think too. I will give it credit though, its very unique. Not my favorite holiday beer, but in having it for the first time I give it credit because it sticks out. Its not a cookie cutter holiday beer. It has character, its a little funky, and I can get down with that.
Megan: This one perplexes me. It poured pretty dark but has a sharp taste I wouldn’t expect from a darker beer. The smell is so different. Initially I thought pine needles or lemon was coming through but I think it’s just a spicy beer as the name indicates. It’s the twilight zone of Christmas beers. It tastes like someone took an Arnold Palmer and turned it into a beer and threw in a ton of spices. I want to keep drinking just to figure it out but I don’t know if I ever will. (Insert, “welcome to the twilight zone”)
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Even though these reviews are almost universally terrible, I somehow feel like this is a beer I would love. And LOL at “It tastes like a carbonated Christmas wreath dipped in a honeypot and topped with nutmeg.” Well-described.