Chimay Red - Peres Trappistes (Belgium)

Chimay Red - Peres Trappistes (Belgium) 7.0%

Fruity, sweet and thick. Strong flavours of apricot with a smooth finish but with a bit of bite. Apricot red and cloudy in a glass with some light sediment but the sediment is so light it doesn't present a problem to drink.

Premium Lager - Pump House (Canada - New Brunswick - Moncton)

Premium Lager - Pump House (Canada - New Brunswick - Moncton) 5.0%

A russet gold colour in a glass. This premium lager is pleasantly nutty with hints of roast. The aroma is slightly floral and barely appley, with faint wooden tones and hops. Very drinkable yet with an interesting makeup. Certainly worthy of the appellation premium.

The newfangled case design is very refrigerator friendly but there's something vaguely vampiric about the label design, spooky building in the background, Gothic lettering... Am I the only one seeing this?

Bard's Gold - Bard's Beer Co (USA - New York - Utica)

Bard's Gold - Bard's Beer Co (USA - New York - Utica) 4.6%

An off putting yeasty and sort of medicinal aroma with tones of stinky cheese. Fortunately it is tastier than that. Though the taste is metallic and herbal. Yeasty too but the head and look of the beer are like any other. A coppery-gold colour in a glass.

The bottlecap has a cool graphic and each has a discussion provoking question underneath (mine read: " Which is more dangerous to own: nuclear fuel rods or a trampoline?") which all goes along with the cheery slogan, " Discuss it over a Bard's".

Not my favourite beer to drink by a long shot but definitely better than the other gluten free beer I have tried and I'm sure there are many people suffering from Celiac's disease who are grateful for this option.

Winter Warmer - Garrison Brewing (Canada - Nova Scotia - Halifax)

Winter Warmer - Garrison Brewing (Canada - Nova Scotia - Halifax) 6.5%

Smells roasty, sticky and like caramel. A dark amber in a glass, a little like burnished wood. Very strong flavour, sweet with a somewhat floral spicy punch and fairly bitter with cloves but also with a hops flavour that is ever so slightly (and pleasantly) green.

Not an ale for the faint of heart but perfect for a curling up with during a dark winter's night. Would be a great drink to serve at any Yule, Christmas or New Years Eve party and would also make a great stocking stuffer for that beer lover on your list.

Truly a great winter style beer, I'm not surprised at all it brought home a Silver Canadian Brewing Award in 2009.

1664 Blanc (France - Strasbourg)

1664 Blanc (France - Strasbourg) 5.0%

This wheat beer is flavoured with plenty of extra additives including just plain old glucose syrup. However at first blush the colour is right, cloudy and a white gold; its aroma is a fun appetizing mix of grapefruit, other citrus fruits and a passion-fruitlike smell that may be from a mix of citrus and coriander wheats are known for. The flavour is actually quite nice, it's fruity like the aroma, there is malted wheat as well as bitterness (it is a real beer after all) and spice in there too.

I can imagine drinking a lot of these would result in a splitting headache the next day (especially since it's 5.0% rather than nearly all of the other flavoured beers out there) but these would be great on a patio in the summertime. It's also a beer that non-beer drinkers could enjoy.

A really cool blue glass bottle and a stylish, though simple, bottlecap. This one is definitely worth a try, hopefully it doesn't get pulled for being released in the winter when it would be better suited for the summer.