The holiday beer on deck (ha) for tonight was Deck the Hills English-Style Holiday Ale from Jackie O's Brewery in Athens, Ohio, coming in at 5.6% ABV which I appreciate since one of the beers coming up is a 9.5%. Gotta plan for that one.

But back to the beer at hand, this looks and smells like a nice rich English brown ale but with a lot more malty/chocolatey notes than a run-of-the-mill brown ale. The color is a nice deep brown and is just slightly translucent.

The flavor is all about the chocolate malt, but it's super smooth, rich, and lightly roasty with just a hint of hop bitterness and a very clean finish, and no astringency whatsoever. The lack of astringency and full, smooth mouthfeel (this beer is SO smooth) made me wonder if maybe this isn't chocolate malt but instead might be Carafa. Sure enough, Jackie O's very kindly lists the malts they use in this beer and Carafa 1 is in the grain bill. I haven't brewed with Carafa but tasting how it works in this beer makes me want to try it soon.

Super high marks for this one. It's extremely well balanced, I love how rich and smooth it is, and it's pretty remarkable they got such huge flavor in a relatively moderate-ABV beer. On that point, if you're looking for a "winter warmer"-style beer this doesn't fit that bill, but it's a fantastic, easy-drinking brown ale. Highly recommended.