No, I'm not going to flash you my bum despite the headline up there. It's much too cold out for that. Haven't you heard that Winter is upon us? Naturally that means Christmas has come early in the form of the next round of seasonals.
Today we'll be looking at Full Moon from Blue Moon Brewing Co. Check out the Blue Moon Web site and you'll see that they claim drinking Full Moon conjures up the image of "a snowy cabin in the woods." I'm not sure how creditable that conjuring is when that's the picture on the label, but now I'm nit-picking. The eternal question remains the same: is this brew worthy of your taste buds?
Tastes: of bready goodness with a slight sweet finish thanks to the included "dark belgian sugar." There is almost no after taste.
Full Moon's bottle claims it to be an Abbey Ale, which is bit confusing as classically that denotes that a beer was produced in an Abbey not a particular style of beer. Of the classic styles of Abbey beer the one that most closely matches Full Moon is "Dubbel" though it lacks a true dubbel's 6-8 percent alcohol content measuring in at 5.6 percent.
I got mine: from a beer-distributing friend; the best friend to have. But you can easily get yours wherever beer is sold.
Goes with: cold winter nights around the fire pit. Seriously Arizona? What's with the fire pits? Is it that we miss the summer sun so much in the dead of winter that we must set wood on fire to get our fix?
Full Moon's sweet finish is refreshing, but probably a bit too sugary to accentuate any sort of meal appropriately.
Verdict: Of all the seasonals I've sampled from Blue Moon Brewing Co. this is the best by far. Grab a case of these and keep them in the fridge for that impulse beer throughout the season.
Happy drinking! -- Jonathan McNamara
