Today we travel to France for Brasserie Duyck‘s Bière De Noël, a Saison-style ale that is, according to their website, "Darker than the traditional amber beer, its torrefied undertones are reminiscent of flowers and caramel."

The site also notes:

Produced with more malt than Jenlain Ambrée (3 different types of malt made from French grown barley and 3 varieties of the most aromatic hops from Alsace), this top fermented, unpasteurized beer, best served at between 6 and 8°C, has a rich amber glow, a denser head and stronger alcohol content (6.8% alcohol by volume).

Sounds good to me. Though I doubt I’ll be able to find any locally, I’ll keep an eye out.

It has a strong showing on BeerAdvocate, with 87 out of a hundred. And 100% thumbs-up from the reviewers. Amusingly, the reviewer who gave it the lowest score (3.4 out of 5) wrote, "Not bad for a French supermarket beer."