Ridgeway: Good Elf (England: Low Alcohol: 0.5% ABV)
Visual: Pale clear yellow gold. Some small bubbled carbonation in the body. A centimeter of tight bubbled white head.
Nose: Kiwi to lime. Slightly crusty bread hop character. Light vanilla. Light bitterness. Fresh bread dough.
Body: Soft lime. Vanilla. Hop prickle. Thin custard. Sweet grapes. Slight sulfur feel.
Finish: Sour dough. Prickly into fluffy hops. Lime and grapes. Vanilla. Icing sugar dusting.
Conclusion: This is the opposite of what you tend to expect from a Christmas beer. It is light in colour, low in abv, golden ale like in hop use with a fresh hop prickle and green fruit flavours. I don’t think it goes the traditional Christmas route at even a single point.
I mean I’m not saying it isn’t nice, it is just unexpected.
The body is crisp and clean at the base, but with a slight real ale like sulfur touch that gives it a bit more weight and grip than you would expect. While not a heavy beer it definitely doesn’t have any watery elements that shout low abv, and that bit more grip means that it can give a nice solid prickle of hop bitterness without having to resort to an all out assault of hops to overcome the drawbacks of a thinner beer.
The fruitiness is sweet green grapes, with brighter lime takes and heavier kiwi touches under. It isn’t anything super fancy but matches the golden ale style well and gives some sweet release from the impressively but not overpoweringly bitter hops.
Overall it is a really good low abv beer that feels like it should be around all year rather than hidden away fro Christmas.
Background: So, we are into February, time for me to start doing Christmas beer notes. In my defence I didn’t do much at all around Christmas, sorry for that. Will try and get things going again. This is a low alcohol beer grabbed from Independent Spirit. Ridgeway also do a Bad Elf beer, which is higher abv but also seems not much like a traditional Christmas ale in style. This is its low abv cousin. Went with The Royal They: Foreign Being as backing music.
