Well for every yin there is a yang, and I have found the Christmas yang. I was really hoping that my first foray into a Belgian style Christmas beer would be a great experience, but it was not to be. This beer reminded me of a time I went to Lewiston, Idaho and had a micro brew from a local brew pub. People had hyped it up to us and we were expecting something really special. I don’t know if we had much higher expectations because we had spent a long day travelling and were road weary and not a little bit hungry, so when we got there we immediately tried several of their beers, and were sorely disappointed. Not to mention the food was terrible too. Perhaps this beer suffers a little from increased expectations, but it was not good…
Brasserie de la Senne’s X-Mas Zinnbir was perhaps the Tim Burton of Christmas ales. It poured a cloudy golden color, and was completely opaque. The last bit of pour was actually chunky coming out of the bottle, and had I known that was going to be the case I would have left the last ounce in the bottle. The nose on this 6.5 ABV brew was kind of aromatic and actually had me anticipating the flavor. It had a malty bready quality that reminded me of a Chimay Red with a a hint of pine on the nose.
Taking the first sip wasn’t that bad, probably because I was trying to decipher the flavors. It was bready with a bit of malt, and tasted almost like a lemony lambic. I tasted pine, and not like a nice pine nut flavor but like a Pine Sol flavor. It was almost medicinal tasting. As I continued drinking it mellowed a bit but the mouth feel was like water with no body at all, there was almost no carbonation which was surprising given the head that came out of the bottle initially.
As I continued to drink it as it warmed the flavors seemed to get more disjointed. There was nothing balanced about this brew, it was a watery, bready, lemony mess of a beer. So I thought it was a Christmas nightmare. I should have picked up on this from the label which had Picaso like characters in a night club setting. Very strange.
So I did something with this beer I had never done before…I poured it in the sink.
-Don
Beer & Whiskey Brothers 
I’ve never even heard of this brew, but your description makes me want to try it (you know, the whole eclipse metaphor-“you know you shouldn’t but can’t resits”)…the whole “lemony mess of a beer” description has me interested.
There are few beers that I consider sink worthy, but when they go down, it is heartbreaking:
http://thankheavenforbeer.com/2009/01/13/what-beers-do-you-consider-sink-worthy/
Read your Sink Worthy Post. That was funny! Probably the reason I poured out about the last 6 oz of this stuff is because there was so much sediment in it I was afraid that what I disliked about it was just going to intensify. I considered for a moment just plugging my nose and downing it, but them my friends words stuck in my brain “Life is to Short to drink Shitty beer” and down the drain it went. Nate I hope you can find this and give it a try, I’d like to know if I’m way off base.
I guess we all know who’s been naughty this year, Don!
Usually breweries play it safe and try to put their best (or most middle of the road) foot forward for theIr Christmas brew, adding a little spice to their tried and true fomulas. If that’s the case here, I’d hate to try their everyday offerings!
I know I will steer clear of this breweries offerings in the future! I went to their web site and it is only in Belgian and French. English is under construction, but it looks like they have a regular zinnbir, a stout, and a couple other things, one had trees in the title. But that is about the limit of my French.
Never heard of this one either. Chunky beer? Pass! Thanks for taking one for the team Don!
Yeah Scott it looked like wet sand coming out of the bottle at the end of things. I’m sure it didn’t add to the flavor in a positive way. I’d say stay away. It was pretty yucky.