888. Pelican Brewing – Bad Santa Cascadian Dark Ale

Posted By kkozlen on Jan 13, 2018 | 0 comments

The end of the day today was a little stressful at work, and then I had to go pick up my son and run several errands. When we finally got home, I was ready for dinner and a beer. I poured myself a huge mug of homebrew and then decided to have one of these beers. My friend Betty sent me a pack of four beers from Pelican Brewing out in Oregon. Since this one is a seasonal, I figured I’d start with it first. The bottle says, “You’d better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout and here’s telling you why bad Santa has arrived. Brewed for a limited time each holiday season, this mysterious dark nectar is filled with complex flavors and aromas. Toasted mall and roast character blend seamlessly with the alluring herbal hop aroma that comes from copious amounts of Fuggle hops. Bad Santa doesn’t care if you’ve been naughty or nice as long as this beer is on your list.”

Location: Poured into a snifter style pint glass at my home in Bloomington, IL.

Numbers: 7.5% ABV, 65 IBUs, ~220 Calories

Appearance & Aroma: It’s black in color, and I couldn’t even see highlights through it when I held it up to the light. It has a thick, creamy, cream-colored head on it, that had incredible retention and lacing. The aroma was light with some roastiness and piney hops.

Taste & Feel: The body is medium-full and the mouthfeel is extremely smooth and creamy. The flavor up front is a light mix of roastiness and dark earthy hoppiness. In the middle, the maltiness comes through a bit more with a very light roasty sweetness, and the hoppiness fades into the background a bit. In the finish, the hops and the bitterness come back in, but it’s still a very smooth mix of roastiness and earthy hop bitterness. The light roasty hoppiness lasts for a short time in the aftertaste.

Food Pairing: This beer is very smooth with a little bit of roastiness, and I think it would go nicely with meat from the grill, or something like burnt ends. The roastiness would complement the meat char perfectly.

Overall Impression: I liked the fact that the roastiness in this beer was very smooth, and didn’t seem to have any coffee-like roasted bitterness at all. The bitterness obviously came from the hops, and had a nice earthiness that mixed well with the dark malts (unlike the competing roasty and citrus flavors I’ve had in other Cascadian Dark Ales). Overall, I thought this was very smooth and flavorful, and was one of the best samples I’ve had of this style of beer.

My Rating: