French

I'm not quite sure what to make of this Jenlain Noël. The thought of a French Christmas beer certainly intrigues me, even more so because it is a Bière De Garde. I went into this beer with high expectations, which may be a little unfair but I tried to keep an open mind. That being said, this beer started disappointing me as soon as I poured it into my glass. This beer smells a bit like iced tea that's been poured over toasted nuts. There's a little funk and a little malt on the nose but not nearly as much, or in the right proportions, as I was expecting from a Bière De Garde. That pretty much sums up this entire beer really...

I thought I knew what I was getting into with this beer when I saw it at the store. It's an amber, a style I'm familiar with - and it's got a German name, a country I'm familiar with. That should have been the tip off that something wasn't quite right. The Germans don't make amber beers... at least not the kind of red and hoppy ambers we've got in the states. I was surprised when I went to pour a glass of this Fischer Traditional Amber when I noticed the fine print on the label... it's from France, not Germany. Nothing bad about that, the French make some good beers. This beer is from the Alsace, a particularly German area of France so maybe the name wasn't deceiving so much as it was coincidental... Well, the surprises didn't stop there.