Today is the final day of the Beer Advent Calendar, and for this Christmas Eve I’ve picked something that every “Santa” might well need this very evening: Port Brewing‘s Santa’s Little Helper. This is a 10.5% abv Imperial Stout that hits the shelves around December (I picked up a bottle in Southern California over Thanksgiving last month) and is a long-standing Port Brewing tradition, having first been brewed in 1997 (14 years ago!). Made from … Continue reading →
Today is my birthday! And as is traditional with the Brew Site Beer Advent Calendar, today’s beer is entirely a vanity pick: it may not be a Christmas beer per se (or at all), but it’s one I pick “for myself” and it’s always something special. For this year, since I have a soft spot for barleywines, and for Oregon breweries (who would have guessed?), I’ve picked Pelican Pub & Brewery‘s Mother of All Storms: … Continue reading →
Today’s beer pick comes from New York’s venerable Brooklyn Brewery: Brooklyn Winter Ale. I’ve been looking forward to including Brooklyn Brewery in the Advent Calendar since 2006, when I featured their Monster Ale barleywine; they are one of what I consider to be the “Old Guard” of American microbreweries and including their Winter Ale is especially fitting since Brewmaster Garrett Oliver’s The Oxford Companion to Beer also came out this year. Brooklyn Winter Ale is … Continue reading →
Today’s beer comes from the Hook Norton Brewery in England: their Twelve Days, a festive brown ale billed as a “Strong Ale” (at 5.5% abv that’s strong for English ales). While a nutty, malty presence gives it that warming Christmas character, it also (somewhat amusingly to me) looks the part, according to the Brewery, being the color of “perfect Christmas pudding.” Twelve Days has a dominant malty palate with nutty flavours. The use of roasted … Continue reading →
Today to commemorate the first day of Hanukkah (which begins at sunset) I have picked not one but two Hanukkah beers (the only two that I’m aware of, in fact): Shmaltz Brewing’s Jewbelation 15, and Lompoc Brewing’s 8 Malty Nights. Picking the two of them together was actually inspired by the teaming up of both breweries in Portland earlier this month for “The Ultimate Chanukah Beer Release” of these two beers so it seemed fitting to do … Continue reading →
