Day two of our 12 Days of Christmas Cheer brings us two brews from Ridgeway Brewing of South Stoke, United Kingdom.  For years, Ridgeway has been brewing up some creatively named brews for the holiday season that are fairly widely available.  We picked these up at Worden’s Market in Missoula.

First up was Reindeer’s Revolt, an “English Christmas Ale,” which for style might be considered an English Strong Ale given its 6% abv.  It has a pleasant medium gold color with hits of red and a rather thick off-white head. The aroma is of candy caramel malt with perhaps a touch of butterscotch.  There is a well balanced grain malt flavor with touches of caramel and biscuit malts.  Hints of hop bitterness sit in the background around the edges. Overall, it has a rather pleasant, mild, thin to medium bodied, typical English ale set of flavors.

For our second round we chose Ridgeway’s Lump of Coal Dark Holiday Stout. It pours a dark brown with lots of ruby highlights and an off-white head. The aroma is faint and slightly sweet. It has a medium body with some lightly roasted malt flavor and a touch of chocolate. Frankly, it tastes much more like a brown ale with a hint of roasted malts than a stout.  I’m not familiar with traditional English stouts, so perhaps this is the norm.  I do prefer my stouts to hit you with a punch of roasted malts. I’m surprised to read on the bottle that the brew has 8% abv.  I not sure where that amount of alcohol went given then rather thin, medium body of the beer. A pleasant beer, but nothing to write home about.  Maybe I’ve been bad this year and only really deserved a lump of coal.

Have you been bad?