Category Archives: Beer Advent Calendar
It’s Christmas Eve and the final day of the Beer Advent Calendar for 2012! Today’s pick is one of my favorite Christmas beers and a perfectly suitable beer for Christmas Eve: Samichlaus from Brauerei Schloss Eggenberg in Austria. “Samichlaus” means “Santa Claus” in the Swiss-German dialect of Zurich where the beer originated in 1980, and it has the distinction of being the strongest lager in the world at 14% abv. The brewery’s description tells the story: … Continue reading →
Today is the one day of the Beer Advent Calendar that I subvert the process and pick something for entirely selfish reasons (which may not even be a Christmas beer), because today is my birthday! And this year is particularly special because this happens to be the big 4-0 for me—yes, that’s right, today is my 40th birthday. We actually celebrated last night with a big party my wife organized at McMenamins Old St. Francis … Continue reading →
Christmas beer… from a can. In all the years I’ve been doing this Beer Advent Calendar I believe this is the first canned holiday beer I’ve encountered, and frankly, it’s a pretty attractive package: Upslope Brewing’s Christmas Ale, an 8.2% abv spiced Belgian-style Dubbel available in 16-ounce “pounders” (Upslope’s regular beer line-up are in 12-ounce cans). “The recipe for this beer is based upon an old homebrew recipe of mine that I use to take … Continue reading →
Today is the big day: the winter solstice and the end of the Mayan Long Count calendar heralding the so-called Mayan Apocalypse! I went back and forth on selecting a beer for today: something solstice-y like Anderson Valley’s Winter Solstice or apocalyptic like Elysian Brewing’s Doom Golden Treacle Pale, brewed as part of a series specifically for the whole Mayan apocalypse thing. In the end though I decided to keep it Christmas-y and thus today’s … Continue reading →
When I think of Christmastime beers, I tend to conceptualize Winter Warmers, or dark spiced ales, or (as in the case of my own homebrewed version) strong/Old Ales styled after holiday fruitcakes. Rarely if ever has a beer inspired by a mulled drink crossed my mind—beer used as the base in a mulled drink, or a wassail, certainly. But not the other way around. Well, western New York’s Southern Tier Brewing has gone that other way … Continue reading →
