Yuletide Cherry Porter - Barley Days (Canada - Ontario - Picton)

Yuletide Cherry Porter - Barley Days (Canada - Ontario - Picton) 5.5%

Dark chocolate aroma, colour with coffee, some smoke and some subtle cherry scents. Opaque and chestnut brown with a red hue in a glass. It does not have much of a head to speak of: just a thin lace of tan coloured bubbles.

Strong chocolate flavour, red cherries with a smoky finish and a velvety mouthfeel that makes me feel like I'm eating a slice of black forest cake. Not just smoky, the finish also tastes fairly strongly of cherry and the aftertaste is a delicious mix of chocolate and cherry. This is an exquisite desert beer though it is not all that sweet so it's also a tasty quaffing beer. I think this would be perfect for Christmas holiday afternoons and after-supper drinks.

Barley Days Brewery (Canada - Ontario - Picton)

Located in Prince Edward County, Ontario, Barley Days Brewery makes three beers year round and a number of seasonal beers as well. I had the good fortune to come across a mixed twelve-pack. The bottles themselves are the standard brown bottle and the bottlecaps are plain but the labels are quite handsome. Here's what I thought of four of their fine brews. (Spoiler alert: they were really good!)

Barley Days Loyalist Lager 5.5%

A crystal clear, medium gold in a glass with a malty, slightly roasty aroma. A great fresh hops taste lends some dry spiciness to this malty lager that is also sweet and somewhat roasty despite its light colour. A nicely drinkable lager with quite a bit of character.

Barley Days Harvest Gold Pale Ale 4.8%

A cloudy gold colour in a glass. A pleasant yeast and grain flavour, somewhat sweet, with hints of caramel, and bitter. A similar hops character as other Barley Days beers but distinctly more bitter and a little more sprucey rather than the dry hops character of the Loyalist Lager. All in all a nice beer.

Barley Days Brown Ale 4.5%

An amber brown colour in a glass with a slightly hoppy aroma of molasses. The taste is sweet and somewhat roasty with hints of coffee or chocolate and the aforementioned molasses. The hops flavour is quite pronounced and decidedly fresh tasting, the carbonation is mild and a watery mouthfeel makes this beer very refreshing. All in all this is one of my favourite brown ales.

Barley Days Wind and Sail Dark Ale 5.0%

A dark, porter-esque aroma of smoke and coffee. Strong notes of coffee and chocolate in the taste; quite sweet with some wooden tones from the combination of dark malt and hops. A malty, smoky aftertaste rounds out this very pleasant dark ale. Very dark in a glass: nearly opaque and the colour of darkly stained wood. Certainly worth picking up, another great beer from Barley Days.