Fancy Pants Sunday: The Lost Abbey Gnoel de Abbey

If you’re looking to curl up in front of Peaks and Pints’ fireplace with a delicious beer on an autumn day, we suggest you consider this week’s Fancy Pants Sunday offering: The Lost Abbey Gnoel de Abbey.

The Lost Abbey calls its newest seasonal “a winter warmer brewed to be lighter in body while maintaining nuanced notes of oak.” Winter warmers are not within a narrowly defined style; rather, they’re a broad range of beers that offer bold flavors, often with sweet maltiness and lots of alcohol. In fact, if you want to know the whole horrifying holiday gamut permissible in your winter warmer, the BJCP’s guidelines for “Winter Seasonal Beer” include “Christmas cookies, gingerbread, English-type Christmas pudding, evergreen trees, or mulling spices. Any combination of aromatics that suggests the holiday season is welcome.” Terrifying, yes, but the BJCP will “allow for brewer creativity as long as the resulting product is balanced and provides some spice presentation.”

When Peaks and Pints thinks winter warmer, we think strong, holiday-spiced brews that after few we may not care about the weather or even read the thermometer, which is why Fancy Pants Sunday: The Lost Abbey Gnoel de Abbey fits well in this weekly column championing complex craft beer. Beginning with aromas of freshly brewed espresso, spices and oak, Gnoel is a fancy, 8.5-percent winter warmer with notes of milk chocolate, red wine barrel, vanilla and holiday spices. The finish is warm with spices, crisp coffee bitterness and a syrupy mouthfeel.

The Lost Abbey Gnoel de Abbey sits in the California section of Peaks and Pints’ cooler.

You fancy The Lost Abbey Gnoel de Abbey