Achilles Serafijn Christmas Angel
This hearty amber brew, well-balanced and warming, is the brewer's special celebration of this wonderful season, when the herald angels sing. A Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year to all, from Brouwerij Achilles!
3.4
153 reviews
Heist-op-den-Berg, Belgium
Community reviews
From notes: Poured hazy orange-amber with a thick, creamy 1-finger off-white head. Sweet, orangey aroma with a very light peppery note and some earthy yeast. Body is medium, with a slight thickness and a dry finish. Flavor is citrusy with a touch of spice, maybe coriander. The dryness in the finish becomes more pronounced as it warms.
Pours a dark, dull, cloudy orange color with an white soapy head. Aroma of plum, cherry, bread, and candii sugar. Excellent lacing with plum, cherry bread, caramel, and candii sugar flavor. Dry finish. Really nice!
Aroma has bread, candy sugar, and some herbal. Flavor starts sweet and bready, with Belgian yeast, caramel, bread, and orange. Fruity bitterness, spice, and a little alcohol in the flavor. Another great Belgian beer.
330 ml bottle into tulip glass, no bottle dating. Pours cloudy orange amber color with a 2-3 finger fluffy off white head with good retention, that reduces to a nice cap that lingers. Slight foamy lacing clings to the glass. Aromas of cherry, raisin, pear, herbal, cinnamon, candi sugar, honey, and light yeast spices. Nice and well balanced aromas with good complexity and decent strength; very pleasant. Taste of cherry, raisin, pear, plum, cinnamon, herbal, earth, caramel, pepper, candi sugar, and yeast spices. Lingering notes of light fruits, herbal, pepper, cinnamon, candi sugar, caramel, and yeast spices on the finish for a bit. Good balance and complexity of flavors. Medium carbonation and body; with a lightly slick and prickly mouthfeel that is good. Alcohol is very well hidden with only a slight warming noticed after the finish. Overall this is a very nice Belgian strong pale ale. Good flavor balance and complexity; very smooth to sip on. Really enjoyable.
Pours orange with a tan head. Sweet plummy aroma. Big bodied, and apple pear and plum. Finish is dry
Aroma is bread, sugar, and yeast. The flavor is tropical fruit mixed with sweetness, along with a funkiness that mixes well with the malts. Wasn’t expecting much after the aroma, this turned out to be a pretty good Belgian Ale.
Date: December 30, 2010
Mode: Draft
Source: Brick Store Pub
Appearance: clear gold, creamy white head, heavy lace
Aroma: sweet fruity aroma, light spicyness
Flavor: sweet fruity flavor, candied fruit, light spicyness, just a touch of bitterness
Overall: light and sweet and very drinkable but I like a bit more depth in a Christmas beer
Aroma: 6/10; Appearance: 7/10; Flavor: 6/10; Palate: 6/10; Overall: 11/20
Rating: 3/5.0
Drinkability: 8/10
Score: ** /4
Amber and slightly hazy. Smells a little bit plasticy with light orchard fruits. Has some phenols with alcohol, very light fruit and some mild hop spice.
33cl bottle. Orange amber color with a big white head. Bread, cherry, and faint wet straw with lemon zest aroma. Dry with modest alcohol presence and a little mealy malt. Fruity alcohol and A little ripe melon. Light bodied and highly carbonated. Decent pale strong ale but nothing outstanding.
Bottle thanks to GT2. Hazy golden pour with a fairly large fluffy white head. Nose holds big fruit esters, nectarine sweetness, a touch of caramel oxidation, licorice, and some dark fruit notes in the form of raisin and plum. Flavor brings more intense fruity sweetness along with some bread and angel food cake. Fairly nice, but very sweet.
A moderately hazy orange pour with mounds of yeast residuals floating in suspension. The head starts out small and white, quickly fading to a ring veneer. Sweet angelfood cake dough gives way to boozy citrus, mild oxidation, buttery toffee, and doughy dark fruits. Graham cracker booze, yeasty dough, and oxidation come out further in the flavor. Thick and sweet palate with a smacking sticky finish.
750mL. Pours a clear, light orange with lots of yeast particulate. A thick, sheen, beige head erupts. Good retention. Extremely estery nose with diacetyl hints...margarine. Taste is incredibly sweet with licorice, fruit cake, and yellow raisin. Decently cloying with such a wallop of candi sugar. Definitely has Christmas Belgian Strong Ale character despite its SRM. Has some of the old fruit cake character of Gouden Carolus Noel but lacks the black cherry dessert aspect. Overall, too sweet for me and estery to the maximum.
Bottle courtesy of GT2, thanks! Bright golden color, thick white head. Aroma of white pepper and straw. Taste is smoothly bitter but plain.
330 ml bottle (bb 08/08/12) from a Belgian Christmas Sampler Pack at Bevmo Salinas. Nose is candi sugar, caramel, yeast, and cloves, lightly hazy orange gold with a big, long lasting, heavy lacing, pale yellow head. Flavor is caramel apples, cloves, white pepperiness, and light bitterness.
Pours five+ finger white head that fades very slowly, leaving some lace. Hazy amber color. Good carbonation and medium bodied. Grass and malt nose and flavor has malt, hints of honey - nice mellow sweetness. $3.99 for a 330ml bottle from Julio’s Liquors Westborough, Ma.
750 mL bottle. Pours bold orange with lots of floaties and a big whitish head. The aroma is peppery with a few tropical fruit notes, plenty of yeast, some clove, and hints of raisin, rum, and alcohol. The flavor is raisin, mango, a little bit of strawberry, white pepper, clove, coriander, and a little bit of candy sugar. There is a warm yeasty bran muffin quality for a moment, then a dry finish. Mouthfeel is dry, almost to the point of being astringent, but not quite. Not bad.
750ml bottle.
Pours a nice amber/honey color with a decent quickly dissipating head.
It smells very fruity with apples, peaches, a hint of pineapple. Like juice, there is just enough yeast to make it smell beery.
The taste is very much of caramel, with some yeasty twang. The mouthfeel is a bit on the watery side, though the carbonation is there, it seems the malt flavors come off a bit watery, while the fruity yeast hits home carried by the carbonation.
This is a basic Belgian Strong Pale, there’s nothign distincitvly wintery or Christmasy about it besides the fruity scent.
Serving type: bottle
Reviewed on: 12-26-2009 21:36:43
11.2 oz bottle. Pours golden with a tall off-white head. Nose was butterscotch and fruity, with sweetness/graininess of pilsner malts. Highly carbonated, slight fruitiness and sweet toffee in the finish. Sweet, Belgian Christmas beer...it had sugar plums (or just sugar) dancing in my head.
draft at Blue Monk, Buffalo, NY. somewhat darker amber pour. Bready, fruity Belgian yeast. Good flavor. Caramel malts, light to medium floral fruitiness. 8% pretty well hidden. Decent
New Beer Distributors, NY 11.2oz ($3.80): Pours a brownish red color with a proper looking head. Aroma is actually quite nice, very sweet and fruity, with some nice yeasts and all that. However, the taste is lacking. It is sweet, but not excessively so. Has a kinda flat spiciness going throughout. Alcohol is sufficiently well covered. Good, but not great and the aroma makes you think that you will be getting a different beer.
THOUGHTS: Exploded on opening. This was overly sweet. Probably not something I would try again unless I was in Belgium and I could be sure it’s fresh.
TECHNICAL: Bottle. Poured a hazy, medium orangey gold with a large, slightly off-white head that kept a nice sheet and left good lacing. It also had tiny, small and medium particles in the body of a thick density. It was bottle conditioned. The aroma had light molasses, caramel and fruitcake; moderate to heavy dough and horse blanket yeast; along with candied fruit, alcohol, honey, candy sugar and apricot. The initial flavor was rather sweet; while the finish was heavily sweet and lightly bitter with an average to long duration. There was honey, candy sugar, caramel, light herbal hops just to balance all the sweetness, lots of yeast, sort of doughy yeast, sugar water and apricot. The medium body was syrupy with fairly soft yet tingly carbonation and an ever so slightly alcoholic finish.
750ml Bottle: Aroma of malt, bread, and tons of Belgian yeast. I smell none of the fruit that many others report as present in the aroma. Poured amber/orange in color with a medium-sized, creamy, dense, off-white head that diminished but lasted throughout. Cloudy. Very sparkling. Full of tiny, and a few small, particles throughout. Flavor is light to medium sweet. Tastes of Belgian yeast, malt, bread, dough, and some dust. Medium body. Tingly, then dry texture. Average to lively carbonation. Yeast, light malt, bread, dough, and slight dust finish is dry. 8%ABV is completely hidden throughout.
Golden color. A little cloudy. White head. Aroma is faint, but I got grain and some spice. Clean flavor, apples and pears. Very effervescent. My fav beer of the night.
Pours a clear orange color with a long lasting pillowy head. Aroma is grain, toast, honey, clove, some citrus, and very herbal. Flavor is honey, orange, coriander, spice, herbal, and a light peppery finish.
I just celebrated Christmas Eve dinner, sharing a bottle of this with my brother-in-law. I had aged the bottle two or three years, and the aging didn’t hurt it any though it’s impossible to say what it would have been fresh. It’s an attractive pour, with a big initial head and a somewhat oily body, with a hazy range of colors, like a sunset in brown-to-yellow spectra. The flavor wasn’t all that exceptional, but is reasonably well balanced with some alcohol lifting the aroma and flavor and some yeast, bread, citrus, and very mild hops. Body a little flat (a product of aging?) Decent, drinkable, though not a particularly good complement to a dinner of BBQ ribs (a family Christmas Eve tradition). 750 ml. bottle.
Quite tasty but nothing overtly Christmas. Does that matter? Probably not. Very fruity and spicy aroma from a cloudy amber with a big head. The flavor is fruity at first and the peppery with a nice alcohol burn at the end. Very warming and since it’s only about 20 degrees here in the Pinelands, that’s a good thing.
Pours dark gold with a wispy off-white head. Notes of dusty yeast, earthy malt, herbal, lightly bready yeast. Light notes of spice, pear, and apple. Medium to full bodied, lively carbonation.
Pours a hazy, peach gold with a tall, frothy light beige head that has excellent retention and leaves some tiny bits of lacing. Aroma is tree fruit, zesty citrus, peppery yeast, sweet floral notes, a bit of alcohol and some dry grass. Flavor is dusty grain, light tree fruit, hay, bready and peppery yeast, a touch of fusel alcohol, and grassy yeast. Palate is surprisingly light bodied, moderately carbonated and has a slightly chalky feel. Not the best BSA out there, a little bland really.
11oz bottle from Bev4less. Pours a hazy dark gold color with a small white head that quickly recedes to a fine film. The aroma is Saison-like with spices, white fruits, yeast and cardboard. The flavor has molasses, brown sugar, plums, dough and a hint of cola. The palate is somewhat thin and the carbonation is prickly. Finishes medium in duration with lingering burnt sugar. Overall: Ok beer, but I expected more.
Bottle 750ml.
[ Vintage BBF 0910 ]. Clear medium to dark amber yellow orange color with a average, frothy, good lacing, mostly lasting, off-white head. Aroma is moderate malty, toasted - caramel, moderate to light heavy yeasty, overripped fruit. Flavor is moderate to heavy sweet and moderate bitter with a long duration, overriped fruit, malty. Body is medium, texture is oily, carbonation is soft. [20101022]