Why We Picked It: A holiday brews from a favorite regional brewery, Victory.
What Victory Says About It: This belgian-style holiday ale combines the beloved flavor profile of golden monkey with notes of cranberry, orange peel, cinnamon and nutmeg to deliver a delightfully smooth finish, perfect for merry gatherings with family and friends.
Style: Belgian Strong Golden Ale / /
ABV: 10%
IBU: 35
Website: https://victorybeer.com/
To Better Know A Brewery: Headquartered in Downingtown, PA, Victory Brewing Company is a craft brewery founded by Bill Covaleski and Ron Barchet. In 1996, Victory opened its doors to serve full-flavored, innovative beers putting curiosity and inspiration from their travels and the world around them into each delicious, high-quality beer. By 2014 Victory outgrew the original Downingtown brewery and opened a second brewery in Parkesburg, PA. Victory operates three taprooms; the Downingtown site, Victory at Magnolia in Kennett Square and Parkesburg featuring great views of the large-scale production facility and self-guided brewery tours.
The spices in this one are very subtle. If someone poured a glass of this for means didn’t tell me it was a Christmas beer I’m not sure I could have figured it out. But I’m not complaining- I like the beer a lot and if I want more holiday flavor I can always mix it with egg nog.
ReplyDeleteUgh *for me and didn’t
DeleteI just assumed you were drunk.
DeleteAs a big fan of Golden Monkey, I was very excited for this and it generally lived up to it. I remember drinking two Golden Monkeys (9.5% ABV) at some overly swanky DC restaurant with Bill and Jeremey after a DC United match... the rest of the night is pretty vague.
ReplyDeleteAs for Merry Monkey, I get roasted, spice, malt and touch of cranberry, but it never overwhelms and has a nice finish. I may have wanted a slightly punch of booziness from a 10% ABV, but its still very good the way it is (just much more dangerous). With each sip, I like it a more and more. This is a contender for the best one yet, and is definitely going into my holiday rotation.
Also love the label.
DeleteI will say I wrote this as drinking it, and the sips of beer were kind of all over the place and much more cranberry at the bottom of the bottle. It became almost like a rollercoaster of Xmas beers. I don't know if I be seen that much variatio from sips to sip in a beer. Fortunately, I like rollercoasters.
DeleteI agree with Shep, this could be one of my favorites and with every sip, I like it more. A fine way to start the holiday vacation. I feel like some of the spices come out stronger after a few sips. I will sip slowly and enjoy. Really delicious.
ReplyDeleteLongtime fan of Victory. Many memorable nights and nights I can't remember featuring the Golden Monkey. Pretty sure that was the beer that put me over the edge the night a few of us decided to drink every sample on the RFD menu in alphabetical order. A wild ride. And there is that post DC United incident Scott referenced. Greg recently turned me on to the sour monkey which is just outstanding. HopDevil is a just a great go-to IPA. So I saw Victory, 10%, and figured I was good. Tried to overlook the cranberries.
ReplyDeleteAs is the McNary family tradition, I poured half in a glass for Ro and kept the bottle for myself. Took a sip from the bottle. Not bad. I could actually use more spices (did I just type that out loud?) and a bit less cranberry but pretty tasty and masks the booze nicely. I gave the glass to Ro. She took one sip and almost gagged. Asked what that was and I said "cranberry?" So I got the glass. I took a sip from the glass. It tastes like cranberry cough syrup. Seriously. Awful. I am now sitting here with the bottle and the glass alternating sips and trying to figure out these two beers came from the same bottle. It's like the Two Face Girl on Seinfeld (so appropriate on Festivus). So I give this 3 out of 5 from the bottle and 1 out of 5 from the glass. Currently trying to figure out if I can pour the glass back into the bottle without spilling any, but the 10% is making that quite dicey so I'll just chug the glass and enjoy the bottle. Alright, off to feats of strength. Luckily none of you have disappointed me this year.
I drank mine from a glass. That must have been my mistake
DeleteI read the comments before trying this and so was surprised to find it more spiced than the comments let on. But not objectionable. And I do love the label.
ReplyDeleteOk I hadn't read Bill's whole comment and now I'm wondering if the other earlier comments were from bottle or glass? I poured mine into glass, maybe should have read Bill's entry first. And now my daughter is playing Dance Monkey, how appropriate...
DeleteI poured the two faces beer into a glass and found it not great. Too much spice flavor. I will say that I like victory but was never a fan of golden monkey because I found it too spice flavored.
ReplyDeleteI like Victory. I thought I have had more of their beers but Unttapd says I've only had DirtWolf double. It is possible I forgot to check in. But DirtWolf got a 4, which is very rare from me.
ReplyDeleteMerry Monkey. Didn't know what to expect 🙊. Took my first sip and now I know.
To... WAY to sweet for me. I cannot distinguish what the opening tastes are and I find it quite boozy from the start. I think the confusion is from too many ingredients? I know many already disagree.
What I can taste, and it's the most distinct flavor and strongest of all the Xmas beers to date is the ginger. Very strong aftertaste presence, which I like. So if I pinch my nose and release right after I swallow it's like a ginger cookie.
I'll give this a 1.7/5 Moscow monkeys.
Far exceeded expectations. Belgian and holiday taste at the same time and not screwing it up somehow. Did not get the cough syrup taste references by Bill. Perhaps some leftover NyQuil in that glass?
ReplyDeleteYikes! 10 ABV. I think this is solid, albeit boozy tasting. The spice mix is not my favorite, but I am enjoying it.
ReplyDeleteAnd, here's to RFD. What a great place.
3/5 "haven't you always wanted a mon-KEY"s
Not my thing 1.5/5 my least favorite so far. It tastes like they mixed it with an old wooden bat covered in old school pine tar.
ReplyDeleteGreg -- great stuff in my opinion. A flavorful, smooth strong Belgian ale with interesting spices around the edges that aren't too too much. I am a huge fan of Golden Monkey, and I must admit that their Sour Monkey take is probably one of my top three beers of all time, so I'm kind of in the bag for Victory on this take. I hadn't come across this rendition on my own, so thanks for including it here!
ReplyDelete