starting off a month of content

Although it's still the roasting hot summer, there are ways to get your mind off it.  Fans, dark places, cooled spaces, and even some mental tricks.  Like drinking a winter ale.  That should help, right?  It was a chance find on the shelves, over by the Belgian Christmas beers.  But, as soon as I saw that "winter" in the label I knew it had to make the trip to my refrigerator.  Pixkanaka from Boga Garagardoa was produced for (with?) a Basque magazine, Pikara.  The word pixkanaka seems to mean little by little, referring to the progress made in egalitarian circles I guess.  The label says "To drink little by little", which is surely better than being the winter ale of our discontent.

It's a nice, dark caramel color, just a light layer of off-white head.  The aroma is a little more sour than I expected, although mostly it's a full whiff of grain.  The taste follows the scent closely, malty, bready, a tiny bit of tang.  It does have a wintery sort of feeling to it, the toasty part and a light hint of orange.  There's some other bits of fruit too, but not the heavy tropical kind of IPAs, something lighter and frostier.  I can imagine snow-covered fruit baskets, apples, oranges and grapes.  There is some weight to it, so it would be a good choice on a colder evening, but it's not too heavy even in the dead of summer.

Supplier: La Buena Pinta
Price: €3