Today’s pick is Wild Goose Brewery‘s Snow Goose Winter Ale. This beer hails from Frederick, Maryland, and is classified by the brewery as a "strong English Ale" at 6.2% alcohol.

Wild Goose prides itself on brewing English style ales and mentions that they brew with Ringwood ale yeast, a distinctive yeast strain indigenous to England that imparts unique characters to the beers it ferments. A good article from the Real Beer archives on Ringwood can be found here. (I always find it interesting when a brewery name checks its yeast.)

Snow Goose is malty, hoppy, sweet and spicy that all blends together into a brandy-like character, something that’s difficult to achieve without higher alcohol levels. It’s a bold beer, very well suited to the cold winter months. And I bet it would pair well with that traditional Christmas goose…

BeerAdvocate score: 84/100, 98% approval. RateBeer score: 3.48/5, 83rd percentile.