By Greg B. One of the wonderful things about beer is that it is a drink of the people.  Knowing that people like to celebrate things (seriously, look at your calendar and the frequency of national holidays.  Then add in your own parties and events.  Humans are party animals.), brewers from all over the world craft beers for seasons and festivities.  Christmas ales and other holiday winter warmers are starting to come out for the 2009/2010 winter, so I thought I’d review one of them that you are likely to find in your store, the Corsendonk Christmas Ale.

You may know of Corsendonk  from their very delicious Belgian Brown ale.  It typifies that style, a simple brown ale which actually has a lot of flavor and is a good, all around beer.  We purchased a 750ml bottle, chilled it nicely in the fridge, and opened it up once the weather was a bit chilly (so, those in the Baltimore area know we tasted this bottle a few weeks ago, when it was actually cold outside!).  The beer pours a slightly reddish brown color, with 1, to 1.5 fingers of light tan head, made of large foamy bubbles.  The aromas of the toasted malts stood out, along with some typical Belgian spice and other seasonal spices, nutmeg, cloves and dried dark fruits.  The taste was a bit disappointing, however.  It tasted almost just like steeped grains… for any brewers out there, like an early stage in a mash, a malted barley tea almost.  The carbonation was about average, but the body of the beer was thin and watery, like the flavor.  This is not a beer I’d want to buy again… I thought it would have had great potential, but it came up very short.  1.4/5, 8.5% abv.