The Bruery 9 Ladies Dancing Review

Name: The Bruery 9 Ladies Dancing
Style: American Strong Ale
ABV: 11.3%
IBUs: 0 (According to The Bruery's website)

More winter beers, hooray! Or in this instance, we have a Christmas beer courtesy of The Bruery with their 9 Ladies Dancing, which is either an American or Belgian Strong Ale (depending on who you ask) made with lactose, cacao nibs, vanilla and coffee. It is, in the brewery's own words, supposed to taste like a tiramasu desert cake. Also you'll notice too that I have the IBUs listed as 0 above; If I don't know the IBUs of a beer, I normally put N/A but 0 is what's listed on their website. Whether it's intentional or not is beyond me.

I did some research on this beer and it turns out that this is actually part of a series, with each beer being named after a verse from the Christmas carol "Twelve Days of Christmas", with the previous entry being 8 Maids-a-Milking, which was an Imperial Stout. That means next year, we can expect 10 Lords-a-Leaping.

Appearance - Cloudy dark brown with no visible carbonation. The head starts out foamy but quickly loses volume and becomes a thin film, though the lacing is quite plentiful

Aroma - Chocolate malts and vanilla, with some bready yeasts and lactose notes. I'm also picking up on some mild coffee roastiness in here as well.

Taste - Strong coffee start with vanilla, lactose, roasted barley yeasts and a sweet candied chocolate/caramel maltiness on the back end. Also I'm getting some very light bitterness, but I'm not sure if it's hops or just the flavors coming together in a certain way. Either way, it does remind me of tiramisu!

Even though different websites list this as either an American or Belgian Strong Ale, I feel the flavor definitely puts this into American territory based on the lack of Belgian characteristics that I came across while having this. On the flip side, the overall flavor definitely reminds me of a tiramasu and one of the better examples of a dessert beer that I've had in a long time. If you so happen to see this, it's a must have this winter.

The Bruery 9 Ladies Dancing - 9/10