So I decided that even though I have been under the weather last couple of days, I would suck it up and drink a beer for #beersaturday, can't miss that contest, I might actually win one of these days. Kind of changing things up, going with a beer I am unsure how it will be, usually for beersaturday I like to p-ick an awesome beer but this time, not sure what it will be like. Plus since I am not 100% didn't want to waste a good beer. :)

Upslope Brewing - Christmas Ale

Stats

• Brewery: Upslope Brewing - Boulder, Colorado
• Alcohol Content: 8.2% by volume
• IBU: 25
• Company Description: Holiday spices complement the dark fruit and spicy notes from Abbey Ale Yeast. The distinctive holiday aroma, ruby red color and rich malt flavor make this ale perfect for spreading Christmas cheer.

Packaging
This beer, as with all Upslope beers, comes in a recyclable aluminum can, 12 oz in this case (they also offer 19.2 oz cans for some of their limited releases). In a festive red colored can, with white accents, it has the standard Upslope shield with beer name and Limited Release pastered across the front and back. The side of the can lists the ingredients which includes snow melt which pretty much always cracks me up. That just means water for those of you who might not realize that, but from a mountain stream for this Colorado brewery located in the Rocky Mountains.

The Beer

• Appearance: Pours an amber color with a modest light tan foam head.
• Aroma: Smells of abbey hops, and holiday spices.
• Taste: I have to admit, this was not a very tasty beer for me. I found it to finish alot like most Belgian ales, which I really don't like. Maybe it is the dark fruits they speak of or the particular spices they used but not a beer I liked the taste.
• Mouthfeel: I will have to pass on this as my mouth was not the best right now, dealing with a sore on bottom of my tongue, so it kind if irritated that.
• Drinkability: I sipped it to the bitter end, so not very drinkable in my opinion. The abv was pretty high also, at 8 plus so that would limit it but these types of beers are brewed to be kind of a single drink, after a meal and such.

Rating and Final Thoughts

As you might have noticed from my description, not a favorite, I ranked it at 2.5 on Untappd, where 2 friends gave it a 2.75 and overall rating was 3.58 by over 5400 peeps. Untappd calls this a Belgian Duppel so I now know why I didn't like it! We get a lot of the Upslope beers here in Montana and overall I like most of their beers but sometimes there are gonna be beers you just don't like. I bought this as a 6 pack filler at a grocery store, not knowing what to expect as Winter type seasonal ales can run the gamut on taste. So far I am not batting well on that 6 pack. 0-2 on the two beers of the 6 I picked, and the first was the worst beer I have had in a long long time. The remaining 4, i Know at least one will be good, but after that, it may be a total loss but every beer has to be tried. It's all about the Untappd numbers! :)

2.5/5

If you have followed me for a while, you will notice I went back to my old format, pre-sevendaybeerchallenge posts. Let me know if you like this type of post of my sevendaybeerchallenge style. I'm not sure how many people really care about aroma and mouthfeel and things of that nature? I truly would appreciate some feedback on that from my beer drinking friends on #Steemit.

As I stated before this is going to be posted on the Week 41 Beersaturday contest so after you like it here, go check there for an upvote. I am going to keep tagging sevendaybeerchallenge also, just cuz that is a cool tag page.