1) Yeah, I know Christmas is well and truly over. The fairy lights have been unplugged. The giant blow-up Santas are deflated. The decorations are packed away. The tree has been chopped up and placed in the council’s green waste bin and picked up by the truck on bin night (at least that’s what we do with our tree after December 25). At least one present your kid got has already been broken.

2) Despite this, I still wanted to include a Christmas-themed beer. Because it’s an impressive beast – Bridge Road’s Magical Christmas Unicorn. I got a bottle of it in that Christmas countdown advent cases Bridge Road puts together for Dan Murphy’s. I think it was the December 24 beer but I’m not sure as I opened the whole damn case some time in November. For me, these advent deals are like a mixed case. Also, I’m not that organised as to remember to get that day’s beer out of the case each morning and put it in the fridge so I can drink it that night.

3) The unicorn is tagged a “vanilla ice cream ale” and it certainly is that. If you’ve ever had one of those Dixie cup ice creams with the wooden paddle for a spoon, then you’ll have an idea what this tastes like. The flavour is strongly reminiscent of those ice creams, though the sweetness is dialled down to make it a tasty beer for summer, rather than a thick, sweet dessert style beer. It really is an amazing creation.

4) The ice cream doesn’t come from the addition of actual ice cream but rather  lactose. Though you have to go online to find that out. The beer label prefers to keep it a secret, stating that “some things in this universe are better left unexplained, either to preserve the mystery of the tightly wound dimension or to avoid bursting our bubble of ignorant bliss”. You can’t help but like that description.

5) Just like you can’t help but like the grading scale on the back label. Bridge Road beers usually have sliding scale for the malt and hop profiles, which give an indication of what you can expect. The profiles for the Magical Christmas Unicorn are a little bit different.

Gotta love that.

Free or paid for?: I paid for this beer, along with the 23 other ones that came in the advent case of beer.